YANGON, 26 July 2019: Myanmar Airways International will dip its toe in the China market with two new flights that will start as scheduled charters out of Mandalay.
The airline will fly to Hefei in China every five days with all seats pre-sold to Chinese tour operators selling package tours to Myanmar.
The flight will depart from Mandalay, Myanmar’s second-largest city after Yangon at 1725 and arrive in Hefei at 2205.
The return flight will depart Hefei at 2305 and arrive in Mandalay at 0100. Due to launch 31 August, the service will use an Airbus A319.
Hefei is the capital and largest city of the Chinese province of Anhui with a population of around 8 million people.
On 29 August, the airline will launch a similar charter flight departing every five days from Mandalay to Nanchang with the same departure and arrival times as stated for Hefei. It is also a scheduled charter with no local sales in Myanmar and seat allotments sold to Chinese tour operators for their package tours.
Nanchang is the capital of Jiangxi Province in southeast China and the largest city in Jiangxi Province. Located in the central part of Jiangxi Province it has a population of around 5.6 million.
The airline also launched services to Hangzhou from both Mandalay and Yangon last week. The inaugural flight between Mandalay and Hangzhou took off from Mandalay on 17 July. Two days later, the service from Yangon to Hangzhou commenced.
MAI will fly once a week to Hangzhou from both Mandalay and Yangon.
Hangzhou is MAI’s second destination in China after establishing a route to Guangzhou last year.
Meanwhile, Dong Hai Airlines launched a twice-weekly direct route last week between Shenzhen and Nay Pyi Taw, Myanmar’s political capital.
It marks the airline’s second destination in Myanmar after it started a direct flight from Yangon to Shenzhen.
According to a report in Myanmar Times last week, the Chinese budget carrier Spring Airlines is now serving the Shanghai-Yangon route with four weekly flights.
Last June, China Eastern Airlines launched a direct Shanghai-Yangon three weekly service using an Airbus 320 aircraft.
Currently, there are direct flights from Myanmar to 10 Chinese cities, including Wuhan, Sichuan, Shanghai, Xi’an, Chengdu and Shenzhen.
Over 3.5 million tourists visited Myanmar in 2018, of which 40% came from China.
(Source Airlineroute and Myanmar Times)
