Myanmar Establishes Direct Link With India

Anindita Chattopadhyay - New Delhi

Appoints Bird Travels As GSA

Myanmar Airways International has made a comeback to the India market after an absence of almost two decades. The airline, which terminated its Yangon-Kolkata flight in the early eighties due to a financial crunch, has started direct non-stop services to Delhi from March 16 and has appointed Bird Travels as their GSA. 168-seater Boeing 737-800 will service the sector thrice a week on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays.

The move, according to Maung Maung Ohn, chairman, MAI, is a development directly linked to Atal Behari Vajpayee's open sky agreement with the ASEAN countries allowing designated airlines from the regional grouping to run daily flights to India. "MAI took this opportunity because bilateral cooperation and trade relations between the two countries are increasing with many IT, communications, transportation and energy projects coming up and India's outbound tourism is growing."

MAI, a regional airline, is currently operating flights to Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur, Hong Kong, Singapore, Dhaka and Jakarta. The USP of the airline is its on-board service. A full meal service is offered regardless of the flying time.

Though only 6,200 Indians visited Myanmar last year, Gerard de Vaz, MD, MAI, is confident that the country will catch the fancy of business travellers given the ample opportunities to invest as well as leisure travellers, who would like to experience a less travelled, off beat destination.

"Further, MAI has entered into a code-share agreement with Thai Airways International to operate joint services on the Yangon-Bangkok sector which enables us to provide an immediate connection to and from Bangkok. Plus the new service will offer access to Singapore, Hong Kong, Kuala Lumpur. With shortage of capacity and difficulty in getting seats, many Indians would like to fly with us for the convenient connection and visiting a new destination will come as a bonus," said Vaz. When asked about the visa application process, Ohn informed it can be obtained within a day and visa on arrival can be arranged for groups if travel agents send the list of passengers to the ministry in advance.

Admitting the fact that awareness about destination Myanmar is poor, Ankur Bhatia, MD, Bird Group said, "There is not much awareness about the destination because there wasn't any direct link. Anyway, we will hold roadshows to create destination awareness in the next couple of months."

Bhatia expects to generate an average load of 70-80 per cent. "We offered special fares for the first three flights and the third flight on March 19 had 100 per cent load. We'll come up with special fares from time to time, while the special promotion for travel agents currently on offer will continue for some time," he said commenting on the marketing strategy.