Bangladesh-Pakistan flights resume after 14 years

DHAKA (AFP): Direct flights between Bangladesh and Pakistan resumed on Thursday after more than a decade, as ties warm between the two nations that have long had an uneasy relationship.

Bangladesh and Pakistan – geographically divided by about 1,500 kilometres (930 miles) of Indian territory – were once one nation. They split after a bitter war in 1971.

Since 2012, travellers between Bangladesh and Pakistan had to use connecting flights through Gulf hubs such as Dubai and Doha.

On Thursday national carrier Biman Bangladesh Airlines departed for the Pakistani city of Karachi, the first regular flight since 2012.

Mohammad Shahid, one of 150 Karachi-bound passengers on board, said he was happy to be able to travel more frequently than before, when he could only make the journey once every two or three years.

“We had been waiting for such an opportunity because we travel continuously,” he told AFP in Dhaka.

“There are so many people waiting in Pakistan to come here, and some waiting here to go there.”

Direct flights will now operate twice weekly.

Biman said in a statement that their resumption would “play a significant role in promoting trade and commerce, expanding educational exchanges, and fostering cultural ties between the two countries”.

Ties with fellow Muslim-majority nation Pakistan have warmed since a student-led revolt in Bangladesh overthrew Sheikh Hasina in 2024, ending her autocratic 15-year rule.

Over the same period, relations between Bangladesh and Hasina’s old ally India have turned frosty.

Cargo ships resumed sailing from Karachi to Bangladesh’s key port of Chittagong in November 2024.

Trade has risen since then and cultural ties have grown, with popular Pakistani singers performing in Dhaka, while Bangladeshi patients have travelled to Pakistan for medical care.