Biman Bangladesh Airlines on Monday launched direct flight operation to Madina from Dhaka as the second destination to Saudi Arabia after Jeddah.

The national flag carrier will operate flights on the Dhaka-Madina-Dhaka route for three days in a week –Monday, Wednesday and Saturday and one on Chittagong-Madina-Chittagong route on every Thursday.

State minister for civil aviation M Mahbub Ali inaugurated the maiden Dhaka-Madina flight at Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport (HSIA) here.

Biman deployed its newly purchased Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner with a capacity of 271 seats, including 24 business and 247 economic classes to operate the flights on the Madina sector.

The state minister said the government has taken the decision to establish direct air connectivity to Madina as the second destination to Saudi Arabia because the number of pilgrims to perform Umrah is getting higher every year.

The national flag carrier is also considering launching flight to Guangzhou and reopening flights to Sri Lanka’s Colombo and Male in the Maldives and increasing flight frequencies on existing routes.

Apart from today’s new route, Biman is operating flights to 16 other international and seven domestic destinations with 16 aircraft — four Boeing 787-8, four Boeing 777-300ER, five Boeing 737-800s, and three Dash-8 Q400.