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Nok Air Cooks Up Myanmar Flight
27th May 2013
Nok Air will soon launch late this year a regional service, its first, out of Mae Sot to Myanmar port of Mawlamyine. Mae Sot is a town in western Thailand sharing a border with Myanmar to the west.
According to the budget airline's Vithai Ratanakorn, its Chief Financial Officer, Nok Air will take advantage of the travel boom in the region, initially mounting flight to Mawlamyine, Myanmar's fourth largest city.
The Mae Sot-Mawlamyine service will commence in September this year. In addition to the Mawlamyine, Nok Air is also planning to launch a second service, also from Mae Sot, to Yangon in October. Right after that, a direct service between Bangkok and Yangon will follow suit in November in the same year.
The low-cost airline is also contemplating mounting its fourth and fifth routes to Myanmar, this time, from Chiang Mai to Yangon and Bagan.
The top officials of the airline led by its Chief Executive Officer, Somchainuek Engtrakul, flew to Mawlamyine from Mae Sot on a familiarization tour in late March this year. The tour resulted in their decision to launch the Mae Sot-Mawlamyine service in September.
The two neighboring countries have forged an agreement recently to open up the Mae Sot border checkpoint to facilitate two-way cross-border trade and tourism activities. The move is also a preparation for the ASEAN Single Aviation Market which will take effect in 2015.
Mae Sot is already served by Nok Mini, a sub brand of Nok Air, utilizing small aircraft such as a Saab 340.
Mawlamyine is the main trading center, a chief port and the gateway to south-eastern Myanmar. It serves as the capital of Mon state and is the country's fourth largest urban center after Yangon, Mandalay and Nay Pyi Daw. It is situated in the Salween River delta along the Andaman Sea, approximately 300 kilometers from the country's former capital of Yangon.
Mae Sot is only 100 kilometers from Mawlamyine but poor road conditions crisscrossing tall mountain ranges and remote areas makes travel over land between the cities a daunting one, if not impossible.
Nok Air will use a twin-engine Saab 340 turboprop on this particular route which seats 37 passengers. The budget carrier is also using similar aircraft for its Mae Sot-Bangkok and Mae Sot-Chiang Mai sectors.
But wait, the Myanmar government has officially designated only three international gateways located in Nay Pyi Daw, Yangon, and Mandalay. Mawlamyine is only allowed to host domestic flights and it has not given permit to serve commercial flights to and from overseas.
Nok Air disclosed that it was recently granted a special permit from Myanmar government to operate a regional service between Mawlamyine and Thailand.
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