Recent Issues with Flying Using a 'Blue Paper'
Many of you, perhaps in a rush to reach Cyprus, due to your name not appearing on the consulate's page, or because of a delay in receiving your passport, are flying or planning to fly before your Blue Paper expires.
Flying with a Blue Paper is generally not allowed by Bangladesh Immigration. In these cases, one usually has to arrange an 'Airport Contract' and get the flight ticket 'Ok to Board'.
However, recently, a new problem has emerged even after completing these steps, which is 'AIRPORT OFFLOAD'.
Airport Offload means a passenger is not allowed to board the aircraft or is removed from it.
This usually happens due to:
Incorrect or incomplete documentation
Suspicion regarding the visa/purpose of travel
Insufficient funds
Previous bad record
Security reasons
Recently, 8-9 students from various universities in Cyprus have been victims of this offload and have had their passports seized.
They had both the 'Ok to Board' and the Airport Contract, yet they were stopped and unable to fly. If someone's ticket is non-refundable, this results in a loss of lakhs of Taka and significant mental distress.
Those who were offloaded were given two options:
To fly after getting a sticker on their passport.
To obtain a confirmation letter from the consulate.
This 'Airport OFFLOAD' is being applied randomly to our students. Any of us who plan to fly later with the Blue Paper could be arbitrarily offloaded; in such a situation, the Airport Contract doesn't work either. If the ticket is refundable, the loss would still be around 20-30 thousand Taka.
I pray that no one has to face such a problem.
(Trust in God).
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