Regional airlines are boosting their services from major cities to newly opened Myanmar in response to the ever-growing demand for flights to the country.
China Airlines said starting October 28 it will increase its CI7915/CI7916 service between Taipei and Yangon from five weekly to daily, with new services on Thursday and Sunday.
This follows the airline adding a flight on the route in May (see here) and September. An airline spokesperson said these frequency increases were in response to a continually strong demand on the route, with the passenger load factor remaining above 80 per cent.
Korean Air has also announced that it will increase its four-times weekly service to Yangon – which it started September 13 (see here) – to daily from December 21.
Myanmar International Airlines recently told Business Traveller that it is planning to start flights between Yangon and Hong Kong before the end of the year (see here). Meanwhile, Dragonair last week announced it would start four times weekly flights between Hong Kong and Yangon from January 9, 2013.
On October 15, Japanese carrier ANA resumed flights between Tokyo and Yangon, becoming the first carrier to connect Japan to Myanmar since the country began opening up recently (see here). The service is all business class.
After over a decade under a military government, last year Myanmar began making moves towards democracy. Many economic sanctions were lifted in April. This has led to a resurgence in business interest in the country, with large numbers of people making initial visits to explore investment opportunities.
Nicholas Olczak
