The renovated Yangon International Airport of Myanmar will be put into service early this year as most of its extension construction work has been completed, a local weekly reported Thursday without disclosing the date of the inauguration.

 

The new airport, designed by Singapore's CPG Airport Consultant Co Ltd and built by the private Asia World Co Ltd since 2003, would have the capacity of accommodating larger aircraft such as Boeing-747 and handling 900 outgoing and 900 incoming passengers simultaneously totaling about 2.7 million a year, the Yangon Times reported.

 

The two-story terminal building of the airport was extended to 240 meters from 102 meters in length and to 60 meters from 42 meters in width, while the runway to 3.6 kilometers from 2.43 kilometers, according to the civil aviation authorities, which have said earlier that the extended airport will deal with international flights, while the existing one be re-arranged to handle domestic flights.

 

To boost its air transport, Myanmar has added seven new airports since 1988, bringing the total number of airports in the country to 28 so far, official statistics show.

 

Meanwhile, upgrade of other aircraft to raise its domestic transporting capacity is also being made by gradual substitution of the existing Netherland-made Fokker-28 or 27 with France-made ATR aircraft.

 

There have been about a dozen foreign airlines that fly Yangon including Air China, Thai Airways international, Silk Air ( Singapore), Malaysian Airline System, Biman (Bangladesh), Indian Airlines, Lauda Air (Austria), Phuket Airlines (Thailand), Bangkok Airways and Qatar Airways.

 

Myanmar's domestic airlines are represented by one state-run Myanma Airways and three joint ventures which are Air Mandalay, Yangon Airways and Air Bagan.

 

(Xinhua News Agency February 1, 2007)