A Boeing B777-200ER aircraft carrying an unspecified number of Bangladeshi nationals living in the United States illegally will land at Dhaka’s Hazrat Shah Jalal International Airport on September, documents and messages issued by the Civil Aviation Authority of Bangladesh (CAAB) reveal.
A permit (No. HQ2389) issued by CAAB on August 30 says that “permission is hereby accorded to United States of America following diplomatic flights to operate as per the following details. The aircraft is to follow approved ATS route”.
The Boeing B777-200ER aircraft will have a specific call sign (OAE3602) and its tail number will be N828AX with alternate tail numbers being N819AX, N828AX and N846AX.
The long-range Boeing B-777-200ER aircraft are wide-bodied and have twin engines.
While the CAAB message initially specified that the aircraft could land at Dhaka airport on September 3, plans were revised today to reschedule its landing a day later.
The flight is expected to touch down at Hazrat Shah Jalal International Airport at 9 pm on Saturday.
The “purpose” of the flight, the message reveals, is the “repatriation of deported Bangladesh citizens ordered removed from the United States”.
While seating capacities vary by each airline’s internal dimensions and layout, a Boeing B777-200ER aircraft has three different layouts in which 314, 396 and 440 passengers can be accommodated.
This would likely be the first flight that would bring in an unspecified number of Bangladeshis living illegally in the US which has been deporting hundreds of people of different nationalities, including Indians, back to their countries of origin.
This deportation drive is part of President Donald’s Trump’s policy announcements even as US officials had previously not disclosed the precise number of Bangladeshi illegal immigrants and how many of them would be deported back to their country of origin. No timelines were specified of the deportation.
The Bangladesh Foreign Ministry was informed of the deportation move well in advance by the US authorities.
On their part, Bangladeshi Foreign Ministry officials had shared their concerns with their US counterparts over handcuffing of deportees.
A formal request was made with the US to not allow the deported Bangladeshi nationals to be flown back with handcuffs on.
Suffice it to say that the US embassy in Dhaka had informed Bangladesh’s interim regime of the move to expel the Bangladeshi living as illegal immigrants in America.
On their part, Foreign Ministry officials were “sensitive” about the US drive to throw out Bangladeshi nationals.
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To ensure that the issue did not turn into a controversy between Washington DC and Dhaka, Bangladeshi officials drawn from the Home and Foreign Ministry, besides security agencies, was held in March 2025.
The inter-ministerial meeting of officials deliberated several key issues, including ensuring due process was followed by the US authorities while deporting the Bangladeshi nationals.
This included confirming their citizenship before they landed on Bangladesh soil.
A crucial aspect of the process was ensuring humane treatment to the deportees. Bangladeshi officials believe that the highest concentration of their nationals live in states such as Connecticut, New York and New Jersey which are on the east coast.
