Numerous Bangladeshi expatriate workers face severe uncertainty regarding their employment and visa validity after widespread flight cancellations and suspensions to Saudi Arabia following recent attacks targeting Riyadh's King Khalid International Airport. The disruption has severely impacted thousands of holidaymakers and new recruits stranded at Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport, compounding existing vulnerabilities in Bangladesh's heavily Middle East-dependent overseas employment sector.
According to a press release issued late Monday night by the Civil Aviation Authority of Bangladesh, operational restrictions at various Saudi airports directly affected 61 direct and transit flights operated by multiple airlines. These disruptions impacted 8,381 passengers scheduled to travel from Dhaka to various destinations in Saudi Arabia. At Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport, dozens of passengers arrived on Monday between 1:00 PM and 4:30 PM desperately seeking information on cancelled flights or waiting for alternative travel arrangements. Moslem Talukdar, a worker scheduled to fly to Riyadh at noon on Monday for his first job at a local shop, explained that his flight was cancelled abruptly, leaving him searching for alternative routes or facing a return home.
The flight suspensions follow a series of attacks in the Middle East, notably the fourth strike in five days hitting Saudi Arabia's Riyadh King Khalid International Airport on Sunday, preceded by a fatal attack on Saturday that claimed the lives of 13 people, including two Bangladeshi nationals, and left another Bangladeshi critically injured. Data from the Bangladesh Bureau of Manpower, Employment and Training (BMET) and the Bangladesh Association of International Recruiting Agencies (BAIRA) indicate that approximately 1,200 new workers travel to Saudi Arabia daily, supplemented by 600 to 700 returning workers on leave, leaving roughly 5,500 workers stranded over the past three days alone.
This crisis highlights structural vulnerabilities in Bangladesh's overseas labor market, which remains heavily concentrated in a small number of nations. Ministry of Expatriates' Welfare and Overseas Employment data from January 2011 to December 2025 shows that out of 203 destination countries, nearly 79 percent of workers went to just five nations, with 94 percent concentrated in ten countries, predominantly in the Middle East. BMET figures reveal that overseas employment clearance dropped by roughly 32 percent this year, falling from 853,066 clearance certificates issued up to October 12 of last year to 580,632 this year. Specifically, clearances for Saudi Arabia plummeted by 46 percent, dropping from 572,054 to 311,567 over the same comparative period.
Ali Haider Chowdhury, former secretary general of BAIRA, emphasized that the over-reliance on a single major labor market has left the nation's overseas employment sector severely exposed amidst the ongoing crisis. Noting that both new recruits and returning workers are trapped by the flight cancellations—risking visa expirations—industry experts and recruitment stakeholders have called for an urgent, coordinated action plan from government agencies and a proactive diplomatic engagement with Saudi authorities to secure visa renewals and alternative transit solutions, drawing parallels to previous crisis-management efforts during the COVID-19 pandemic and the Kuwait War.
