Carriers in Lao PDR are developing rapidly to service the growing influx of international business travellers to the country.
The state-owned Lao Airlines will be adding two new aircraft to its 12-strong fleet on March 12 – an ATR 72-600 and an A320, the latter of which will be the carrier's fourth of the jet airliner type. Two more A320s are expected for 2015.
Lao Airlines, which already flies to Bangkok, Singapore and Kunming, among others, has launched a number of new international flights in recent months. On January 11, it began services to Incheon Airport and Busan in South Korea, and before that on January 8, it launched flights to Danang and in October of last year, began flying to Guangzhou.
"We are hoping to tap into the growing demand for business travel between South Korea and Laos. In the past four or five years, investors from South Korea have engaged in many business ventures in Laos such as automobile sales, investment in leisure projects such as golf courses and banking," Sengpraseuth Mathouchanh, vice-president of Lao Airlines said."Travellers from Guangzhou, meanwhile, have tended to come for business since last year when Laos hosted the ASEP meetings, and many Chinese companies invested in the construction of supporting infrastructure developments such as hotels and the like."
All the carrier's Airbus' aircraft are two-class, with either 16 or eight of the seats being in business class. The configurations are deployed according to demand.
Within the year, Lao Airlines also plans to add services to up-and-coming business destination Yangon (like many other carriers, see here and here) and Phnom Penh, according to Mathouchanh.
The six-month-old Lao Central Airlines, meanwhile, will receive a new Sukhoi Superjet 100 in February. The 93-seat, two-class aircraft will join the carrier's B737-400, which has 12 business class seats and 140 economy. The airline currently uses this aircraft to fly to Bangkok and domestically to Luang Prabang.
The carrier will take delivery of a total of six Sukhoi Superjet 100s over the year, according to Richard S Miller, chief executive adviser of Lao Central Airlines. "We will be expanding into regional markets and open up new routes flying to four or five new destinations by the end of the year," said Miller. Destinations on the agenda include Hanoi, Kunming, Yangon, Kuala Lumpur and Singapore, he added.
For more details, visit www.laoairlines.com and www.flylaocentral.com
Alex Andersson
