Biman Lands First Direct Dhaka-Toronto Flight Successfully

On the night of the 51st anniversary of the Independence Day of Bangladesh, Biman Bangladesh Inaugurated the first direct Dhaka-Toronto experimental flight on the night of 26th March 2022.

At 11:04 PM, local time in Dhaka, Biman Bangladesh flight BG305 departed from Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport. After flying for 18 hours and 35 minutes straight, the non-stop flight landed at the Toronto Pearson International Airport at 7:38 PM, local time in Dhaka, on March 27.

The experimental flight was inaugurated by Mahbub Ali, Bangladesh’s State Minister for Civil Aviation and Tourism according to the press release by Biman Bangladesh. This very important event marking the Independence Day of Bangladesh was attended by some of the representatives from the Canadian High Commission in Dhaka. 

The State Minister has stated to the press, “We’ve been hoping to begin the Canada flight for the last couple of years. We decided to launch it on Mar 26 to commemorate Independence Day after the Canadian authorities finalised everything.”

Obaidul Muktadir Chowdhury, Chairman of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Civil Aviation and Tourism and Abu Saleh Mostafa Kamal, Managing Director of Biman Bangladesh Airlines were also in attendance.

Since Canada will be easing off their travel restrictions for fully vaccinated international travellers starting from April 1, the passengers of this trial flight were requested to carry a pre-departure negative COVID test result not taken more than 72 hours before the flight.

The flight BG305, after taking off from Dhaka on the 26th, flew westward crossing India, Pakistan, Iran, multiple countries in Europe before navigating across the North Atlantic and then finally reaching Toronto on the 27th. 

BG306, The return flight is scheduled to make the trip from Toronto to Dhaka at 10:00 am local time on March 29 and will be landing in Dhaka on March 30.

From June the flag carrier is planning to operate 3 Dhaka-Toronto flights per week. Due to some high-level technical and security issues, the initiation of regular flights has been pushed back to June 2022 instead of March 26. However, the Dhaka-Toronto flight has always been highly demanded by the expatriates living in Canada will surely be answered soon enough.

The State Minister has stated regarding this matter, “We received a mail stating they [Canadian authorities] require 12 weeks to automate the boarding process. Later, we requested them to let us make the first flight on the special day. It’s a prestige issue for us. We put enough thought behind it. It’s important to start it on Mar 26.”