The Hindu Business Line : Myanmar Airways to start Yangon-Delhi flight from March 15

Mr Gerard De Vaz, Managing Director, MAI, with Mr Ankur Bhatia, Chief Operating Officer, Bird Group, at a press conference to launch New Delhi -Myanmar flight in the Capital on Thursday. — Kamal Narang

New Delhi , March 11

MYANMAR Airways International will start a thrice-a-week direct flight between Delhi and Yangon from March 15.

Announcing this at a press conference here on Thursday, the MAI Managing Director, Mr Gerard de Vaz, said that the new flight would leave Delhi every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday and be the first direct air link between the capitals of the two countries.

Questioned on the pricing policy of the airline as far as the new flight is concerned, Mr Vaz merely noted that the fare would be "competitively priced."

However, airline officials said that the flight would be a big boon for travellers to South-East Asia who were finding it difficult to get air tickets easily at present.

The launch of the new Yangon-Delhi-Yangon flight will see an additional 26,000 air seats being made available annually in each direction.

This figure could go up further, with the airline officials indicating that MAI would look at increasing the frequency of the flight, depending on the market response.

The launch of the flight will also see an increase in direct airfreight capacity of 500 tonnes per year in each direction.

During 2003, more than 6,000 Indian travellers visited Myanmar, a figure that the airline officials hope would increase with the Myanmar authorities easing the issue of visas.

The decision to launch the flight comes close on the heel of the announcement made by the Prime Minister, Mr Atal Bihari Vajpayee, at the India-ASEAN summit in Bali (Indonesia) in October last year.

At the meeting, the Prime Minister had announced an open sky policy between seven Indian cities, including the four metro cities for the designated airlines of the ASEAN member states, including Myanmar.