BANGKOK — Foreign airline companies big and small are falling over
one another in a battle for landing rights in Myanmar to tap into
Southeast Asia’s new and rapidly rising tourist destination.
Myanmar may still be a long way behind its neighbor Thailand in
visitor numbers, but since President U Thein Sein began opening up the
country two years ago, tourism has become one of its biggest businesses.
More than 20 foreign airlines now fly direct to several cities in
Myanmar, ranging from the big German holiday package charter operator
Condor to Thailand’s tiny Nok Air.
Frankfurt-based Condor, the biggest holiday charter flights company
in Germany, is already operating a weekly service, while Nok Air begins a
service in September.
Yangon International Airport clocked almost 500,000 arrivals in 2012
out of a total number of 600,000 people coming into the country by air,
according to government figures.
Last year, the number of visitors to Myanmar topped the 1 million
mark for the first time, but the Ministry of Transport and the
Department of Civil Aviation are forecasting annual increases rising to 6
million visitors in 2017.
The planned new Hanthawaddy airport, to be built about 80 km from
Yangon in Bago Region, is being designed to handle 12 million passengers
annually. It’s provisionally scheduled to open in early 2018.
Nok Air is following the example of other budget airlines by offering
flights on less crowded routes. It will fly between Mae Sot in northern
Thailand and Mawlamyine in Mon State.
Mawlamyine is Myanmar’s fourth-largest conurbation after Yangon, Mandalay and Naypyitaw.
From October, Nok Air will also fly to Yangon from Mae Sot. This
seems set to intensify a battle between regional budget airlines for a
slice of the Myanmar tourism cake.
Nok Air joins THAI Smile, the budget line of Thai Airways
International, which now flies five times a week between Bangkok and
Mandalay.
THAI Smile admitted it started its Myanmar service partly in answer
to growing competition from Malaysia-based budget airline Air Asia,
which also operates a subsidiary in Thailand called Thai Air Asia.
Tiny Bangkok Airways operates between the Thai capital and Yangon and
Mandalay, often providing a feeder service for European airlines flying
to Bangkok.
Major European airline companies are still hesitant about starting up
services directly to Myanmar. For example, while the Middle East’s
Qatar Air flies out of London to Yangon via its Doha hub base, British
Airways flies to Bangkok, where passengers have to transfer to Bangkok
Airways for a Yangon connection. Etihad Airways of Abu Dhabi does the
same out of London.
As with Bangkok, there is competition out of Singapore to fly to
Myanmar. Both Singapore Airlines and its budget carrier subsidiary Silk
Air connect with Yangon, vying with budget line Jetstar, which is owned
by Australia’s major airline Qantas.
China Eastern Airlines and All Nippon Airways, or ANA, fly direct between Tokyo and Yangon.
Japan Airlines and Mitsubishi Logistics Corporation have launched a joint venture cargo business to and from Myanmar.
Other regional airlines now servicing Myanmar include Malaysia
Airlines, Laos Airlines and Vietnam Airlines, while another major
carrier using its budget subsidiary for Myanmar routes is Hong Kong’s
Cathay Pacific, whose Dragon Air is expected to attract mostly Chinese
passengers.
The strong competition on Thailand-Myanmar routes certainly seems justified by recent visitor arrival numbers.
In the first four months of this year, Thais topped the list of
253,000 tourists, according to the Ministry of Hotels and Tourism. That
overall figure was over 40 percent higher than for the same period one
year ago.
Asians totaled 60 percent of the four-month total, led by Thais with
37,000 visitors and followed by Japanese, South Koreans and Chinese.
Among Europeans, French visitors were on top with 15,000, followed by
British and Germans.
But despite the growing popularity of Myanmar with airlines, tourists
and business seekers, actually getting into the country is still
cumbersome.
The visa-on-arrival service is unreliable even for business
travelers, while tourists “often have to waste up to a week waiting for
an embassy to clear paperwork,” said the travel trade magazine TTR
Weekly.
“Even the visa-on-arrival that is in place for business visitors
requires a letter of invitation from a government department or
commercial enterprise. It is essentially a pre-processed visa that is
activated at the airport by immigration officials,” said TTR Weekly.
The confusion over who qualifies for a visa-on-arrival has even led
the US State Department’s Bureau of Consular Affairs to issue an
advisory to would-be visitors, urging them “not to consider the
visas-on-arrival program a viable alternative to a visa.”
Another issue, according to TTR Weekly, is when Myanmar will relax
its visa requirements for citizens of fellow Association of Southeast
Asian Nation (Asean) member states.
“Although tourism is opening up, there has been no clear indication
when Myanmar will comply with the Asean requirement that all 10 member
states should allow visa free entry for up to 14 days for Asean region
citizens,” the magazine said.
The Myanmar Tourism Promotion Board in June told a regional tourism
conference in Bangkok that a review of the present rules would be made
“soon.”
source: The Irrawaddy
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