A mobile court at Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport has fined Maldivian Airlines Tk 236,000 for transporting passengers without a coronavirus negative certificate. Executive Magistrate Ahmed Jamil imposed the fine on Friday.
On Thursday night, a repatriation flight of Maldivian Airlines landed in Dhaka with 200 Bangladeshi workers from Male, the capital of Maldives. At that time, the health workers searched the 118 passengers of the flight and informed the airport authorities about them as they did not get any certificate of Covid-19 free. The remaining 82 were exempted as they had BMET cards.
Air Vice Marshal M Mofidur Rahman, chairman of the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), said any airline that disobeyed the guidelines in passenger transport would not be exempted.
In order to handle the second wave of corona, a directive was issued on November 30 to transport passengers from abroad and the concerned airlines were informed. Even then, some airlines, including Biman, are transporting passengers in violation of the ban. This is the first time Maldives Airlines has been fined at the airport.
Director of the airport, Group Captain AHM Touhidul Ahsan, said that the unauthorized authorities have made the corona negative certificate mandatory for passengers traveling from abroad. But Maldivian Airlines was fined for disobeying Bebichak's instructions and transporting passengers.
In early December, Corona issued a circular mandating a negative certificate for entry into Bangladesh. The directive came into force on December 5.
