Air Bagan leases its aircrafts on chartered flights

by Zarni

Wednesday, 04 February 2009 21:30

Chiang Mai (Mizzima) – Businessman Tay Za owned aircrafts will be leased to an airline in Malaysia which is planning to operate direct Rangoon-Kuala Lumpur flights. The 'Sanbumi' Travel Company from Malaysia is likely to start its business in March after acquiring aircrafts for chartered flights. "The aircrafts are chartered to 'Sanbumi Air Transport'. It means Air Bagan aircrafts are being leased to this company," a responsible officer from Air Bagan told Mizzima. Sanbumi Air Transport chartered a 100-seater Fokker 100 aircraft from Air Bagan to operate on this flight with the Air Bagan logo. The airline code of this flight will be the same as that of Air Bagan's code -- W9. The flight code will be W9-9701. But the officials of Air Bagan declined to disclose the contract price. The new flight will fly biweekly on Thursdays and Sundays. It will depart Rangoon International Airport at 2 p.m. local time for Malaysia International Airport. The agreement on this joint business was signed in January this year by Sanbumi and Air Bagan. The New Strait Times from Malaysia reported that the operators hope to profit from this flight, quoting Sanbumi. "The Grand Opening is planned to be held on 26 February. First we planned it on February 5 but had to postpone it due to some difficulties", a staff of Sanbumi told Mizzima. The ticket reservations will be handled only by Sunfar, Shan Yoma and Nice Fare travel agencies in Rangoon and the branch office of Sanbumi in Rangoon will act  as the agent of the airline. This flight was planned to commence on 5 February initially, but had to be postponed to 15 February because there were no bookings. It is learnt now that the airline informed the travel agents that their flights will start only in early March. "There were very few confirmed tickets bought. Moreover the number of migrant workers going to Malaysia is also declining due to the economic downturn there. So they said that they would fix the new date despite the slump in air travel. The whole set of new schedules will be announced on both air fares and flight schedules," a leading travel agency from Rangoon told Mizzima. Though the operation of the flight is certain, the travel agents are not yet certain about selling tickets as they do not know exact flight schedule. "If either air fare or flight schedule changes, it is very difficult to deal with passengers from our side. So we dare not say the flight is scheduled yet and also dare not accept the booking and ticket reservations. We have not yet sold any tickets for this flight," a woman staff from the air ticketing service said. A tour operator felt that Sanbumi will sell the tour package also if the chartered airline operation is successful. Initially, Sanbumi planned to fly on this route with its own aircrafts but they had to charter Air Bagan's aircrafts as they didn't get landing rights from the concerned department, according to Rangoon travel agent community. Besides the domestic flights, Air Bagan flew international flights on the Rangoon-Singapore and Rangoon-Bangkok route on its Airbus aircraft. Amid the slump in the tourism industry after September 2007 and economic sanctions imposed by US government which made restriction on acquiring spare parts for its aircrafts, Air Bagan had to stop its international flight operations. < Prev   Next >