Thousands of inbound and outbound international passengers were stranded as flight operations at Bangladesh's principal airport came to a near halt since Tuesday morning after the ground handlers staged an non-stop strike to press home their demands.
A large number of employees and workers of the state-owned Biman Bangladesh Airlines, ground handling agent for Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport in capital Dhaka, have joined the strike since 6:00 a.m. local time.
The association of the pro-government employees and workers, Biman Sramik League (BSL), on Monday called the strike to realize its seven-point charter of demands, including withdrawal of two cases filed against its president.
The other key demands of the association included providing 100 percent medical allowance, allowances for meals and uniforms, and regularizing services of those of employees and workers who completed five years with Biman.
Bangladesh's Civil Aviation and Tourism Minister M Faruk Khan rushed to the airport to manage the agitating workers and their association leaders.
The association, however, called off their strike at about 1:15 p.m. local time with the minister having assured to consider their demands.
On account of the strike, almost all the regular activities suffered serious disruption as most Biman employees and workers refrained from ground handling services including loading and unloading to other local and foreign airlines operating in the South Asian country.
No domestic and international flight of Biman departed or arrived to and from the airport since the enforcement of the strike which created plight to thousands of passengers.
Many Biman flights, including two to Singapore and Kuwait, have already been postponed or rescheduled, an official of the national carrier told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.
Inbound passengers who have already arrived in the airport by many fights have also been suffering as luggage handlers remained absent from their service stations.
Hundreds of passengers were seen to queue up at the departure terminals.
Agitating staff employees staged demonstration in many places of the Biman's headquarters, which virtually remained besieged since morning with pro-strike employees and workers.
The pro-strike employees and workers also barred officials who tried to enter its headquarters.
Biman's own staff transportation also remained non-functioning, which means officers and cabin crew were not ferried to reach work.
Against this backdrop, the Biman official said normalcy will return by the end of the day when all could join their service stations.
But source said the strike would likely aggravate the situation as the airport has already become a 15-hour airport for five months from Dec. 1 last year due to repairing work at its runway, which remains closed from 11:00 p.m. to 8:00 a.m. local time every day.
Copyright 2013 Xinhua News Agency
