Myanmar private airline to add one more int'l direct flight service

[PHILSTAR.COM]

YANGON (Xinhua) – A Myanmar private airline, Air Bagan, is planning to add direct flight service between Yangon and Siem Reap (Angkor Wat) of Cambodia, a local weekly reported Tuesday.

The flight to be launched in October this year without specific date announced will be the third regional air route operated by the Air Bagan after Chiang Mai and Phuket, the Voice said.

The Air Bagan has been flying domestically to 20 destinations.

Meanwhile, the Myanmar Airways International (MAI) had inaugurated biweekly flight service between Yangon and Siem Reap in February this year as its international flight extension.

Since 2007, Myanmar and Cambodia have been working in collaboration for realization of direct air link and visa exemption, aiming to promote tourism industry between the two countries.

The work plan includes diverting more tourists from Cambodia's Siem Reap to Myanmar's Bagan, both of which are tourist destinations of the two countries, as Siem Reap has developed a tourism market enough for such diversion.

Myanmar and Cambodia signed three agreements in October 1996 on tourism cooperation, air services and establishment of sister cities between Bagan and Siem Reap.

Inaugurated in November 2004, Air Bagan, the first full private- invested airline in Myanmar set up by the Htoo Company, stands as the third largest domestic private airline in the country after Air Mandalay and Yangon Airways.

Using two Fokker F-100 aircrafts, two ATR -72 aircrafts and two ATR-42 aircrafts, the Air Bagan has been flying the above destinations.