Osmani International Airport

Osmani International Airport, is located 5 miles north-east of Sylhet in Bangladesh serving as the country's third international airport. The airport is operated by the Civil Aviation Authority of Bangladesh (CAAB) and is served by Biman Bangladesh Airlines, the national airline which at one point earned most of its revenue from this airport, GMG Airlines, the first private airline in Bangladesh, United Airways (Bangladesh) and Royal Bengal Airline, British-Bangladeshi owned airlines operating domestic services in Bangladesh.

The vast majority of passengers using the airport are expatriate Bangladeshis and their descendants from the Sylhet Division living in the United Kingdom.

Osmani International Airport was built during British rule of the Indian Subcontinent, partly to check Japanese aggression from Burma.

The airport was formerly known as Sylhet Civil Airport but was re-named after General M A G Osmani, a Bangladeshi Independence War hero. General Osmani was born in Sylhet in 1918 and served as the Supreme Commander of the Mukti Bahini (Freedom Force) and Bangladesh Armed Forces during the Bangladesh Liberation War.

Expansion

The airport was initially served by domestic flights from Shahjalal International Airport by the country's national airline Biman Bangladesh Airlines. After many years of lobbying by expatriates living in the UK, limited expansion of the airport was carried out to enable medium-sized aircraft, such as the Airbus A310 used by Biman, to operate. The work was completed in October 2002 and the airport was designated an international airport by the government. However, the airport was not up to international standards to be capable of fully accommodating international flights due to many shortcomings with the instrument landing system and runway lighting system and was seen as a move to stave off pressure by the government.

Nevertheless, on 3 November 2002, the airport received its first international arrival. Biman flight BG020 from Kuwait via Abu Dhabi landed at 10:05 with 215 passengers en-route to Dhaka. The disembarking passengers on the inaugraul flight were greeted by then Finance & Planning Minister, M Saifur Rahman and State Minister for Civil Aviation and Tourism, Mir Mohammad Nasiruddin. For a brief period, Biman also operated a direct service from London but was later re-routed via Dhaka.

Additional expansion of the runway and improvements to the runway lighting and airport facilities were commenced in 2004 to enable wide-bodied aircraft to safely land and takeoff from the airport.

The South Asia Transport and Trade Facilitation Conference report of 2006 (by the United States Trade and Development Agency) noted that the development of the airport "up to the standards of an international airport" to "encourage private sector participation in air transport" were projects that were under consideration by the government.

Work started in 2006 to upgrade the terminal facilities to enable handling of international flights. The improvements include construction of a new terminal building, two Jetways and a taxi-way. In May 2007, the foreign affairs adviser, informed journalists that the works were on scheduled for completion in June 2007. He also confirmed that Biman will be operating Hajj flights directly from the airport during the Hajj season later in 2007. However, the runway expansion works had not been completed in June with the foreign affairs adviser indicating in August that "minor dressing work" still remained. The work was finally finished in December 2008.