Yangon International Airport adds new terminal

প্রকাশিত: 1 April 2016, 7:54:54 pm

The Yangon International Airport of Myanmar opened a new passenger terminal on March 12.
This terminal, T1, was inaugurated by then President U Thein Sein in a ceremony also attended by several government ministers and Hong Liang, Chinese Ambassador to Myanmar.
The opening of T1 marked a great milestone in Myanmar’s aviation history, U Myint Swe, current chief minister of Yangon Region, said at the ceremony.
The new three-storey building will house arrival and departure halls as well as a shopping centre, and will be able to handle about 6 million passengers per year, according to local media reports.
At present, there are 30 local airlines and 10 international airlines servicing the Yangon International Airport. The airport received over four million passengers in 2015.
Then President U Thein Sein unveiled a bronze plaque to mark the opening of a new lounge at the Yangon Interna-tional Airport on March 11.
The airport was constructed in 1952, U Nyan Tun Aung, Union Minister recounted, adding that the then President Dr Ba Oo put it into service on January 8, 1957.
“The airport was recognised as a regional hub in Southeast Asia,” he said. The facility underwent an expansion in 1994 in a bid to cater for growing numbers of foreign and domestic passengers after 1988. A two-storey building was constructed and opened on September 18, 1996.
Another expansion started in 2004, including the construction of a building, a parking lot and a terminal equipped with four passenger boarding bridges of international standard.
As part of encouraging private-sector participation in line with the political, economic and executive reforms, the government invited tenders for a project to extend and renovate the airport on February 26, 2013, with the union minister saying that Yangon Aerodrome Services Co Ltd won the tender and signed a concession agreement for the works with the Department of Civil Aviation on January 6, 2015.
The newly-opened lounge is a five-storey building with 240 metres in length and 97.7 metres in width and is expected to facilitate the airport’s capacity to ensure the smooth flow of passengers projected to exceed 6,000,000 by 2017. The airport saw a surge in the number of foreign and domestic passengers from 4,394,815 in 2014 to 5,054,037 in 2015. The Department of Civil Aviation entered into an agreement with Yangon Aerodrome Co Ltd on December 7, 2015 for an additional three-phase project to serve 20 million passengers a year. Currently, the Yangon International Airport handles 11 domestic airlines and 28 international airlines.