How Biman flight passengers feel humiliated 

At around 4:00 pm on August 7, 265 passengers suddenly felt as though we had been herded into a prison. After spending nearly 18 suffocating hours inside Biman Bangladesh Airlines’ aircraft, The Sonar Tori, we were lined up and taken through a pocket gate at Rome’s Fiumicino Leonardo da Vinci Airport. We felt like a group of undocumented refugees who had been caught while trying to flee.

After nearly an hour of baggage checks, we were finally allowed to remain in Zone E. The airport authorities told us that they might be able to arrange visas on arrival shortly, which would allow us to leave the airport and stay at hotels outside. But each passenger would have to pay US$100.

A question immediately arose: Why should we pay this additional amount? Shouldn’t Biman Bangladesh Airlines bear the cost? But whom could we tell? There was no Biman representative anywhere to be found. Passengers repeatedly called senior officials, but no one answered or returned our calls.

Eventually, most of us decided to pay for the visas ourselves. As we waited and walked around in search of information, another two hours passed.

Meanwhile, Canadian passport holders were directed upstairs to a room where they could obtain hotel accommodation and the necessary permits. Within moments, 70 or 80 people disappeared from our makeshift refugee camp.


In this manner, we endured another 30 hours, without any meaningful explanation or certainty about what would happen next.

After passing what seemed like an endless test of Bengali patience, we finally began our journey again around midnight�"aboard the same malfunctioning aircraft that had arrived from Toronto two days earlier.

When I was a teenager, after watching Roman Holiday, I often wondered whether I would ever have the chance to walk along the roads and streets of Rome myself. That dream was finally fulfilled.

But not in the way I had imagined. Our “Roman holiday” took place inside the luxurious halls of Leonardo da Vinci Airport. There is, however, an ironic postscript.

According to a press release issued by Biman Bangladesh Airlines�"and subsequently reflected in reports published by many Bangladeshi newspapers�"an entirely different story emerged. The reports said that after the Toronto-to-Dhaka flight landed in Rome on August 6 and developed a technical problem, the passengers had been accommodated in a “royal palace” and provided with “royal meals.” They were supposedly enjoying the opportunity to visit the remnants of ancient Roman civilisation and were now sleeping peacefully.

The reports further suggested that, even after the aircraft’s technical problems had been resolved, the passengers could not be reached despite repeated calls. Some had allegedly disappeared into the streets and alleys of Rome like mythical characters from an ancient civilisation, prompting the Roman authorities to search for them.