Mawlamyine Airport (formerly Moulmein Airport) is an airport in

Mawlamyine Mawlamyine (also spelled Mawlamyaing; , ; th, เมาะลำเลิง ; mnw, မတ်မလီု, ), formerly Moulmein, is the fourth-largest city in Myanmar (Burma), ''World Gazetteer'' south east of Yangon and south of Thaton, at th ...

(Moulmein),

Myanmar Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British English although only some British English speakers pronounce r at the end of syllables. As John C. Wells, Joh ...

History

Mawlamyine (Moulmein) Airport was initially established in 1941. During World War II, it was a

Royal Air Force The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the United Kingdom's air and space force. It was formed towards the end of the First World War on 1 April 1918, becoming the first independent air force in the world, by regrouping the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) and ...

field. It was used not only by the British but also by the

Flying Tigers The First American Volunteer Group (AVG) of the Republic of China Air Force, nicknamed the Flying Tigers, was formed to help oppose the Japanese invasion of China. Operating in 1941–1942, it was composed of pilots from the United States Ar ...

, an American volunteer pilot group then. On 20 January 1942, as a major air operation in Southeast Asia, the 62nd

Sentai In Japanese, is a military unit and may be literally translated as "squadron", " task force", " division (of ships)", "group" or "wing". The terms "regiment" and "flotilla", while sometimes used as translations of ''sentai'', are also used to ...

Heavy Bombers escorted by the 50th Sentai of

Imperial Japanese Army Air Service The Imperial Japanese Army Air Service (IJAAS) or Imperial Japanese Army Air Force (IJAAF; ja, 大日本帝國陸軍航空部隊, Dainippon Teikoku Rikugun Kōkūbutai, lit=Greater Japan Empire Army Air Corps) was the aviation force of the Im ...

attacked the airfield and its satellite at Mudon with a total of 65 planes. On 28 February 1942, Japanese General Obata visited the airfield and it was reconstructed with 450 Japanese construction crews to be used as Air Force headquarters for attacking British airfield at

Mingaladon Mingaladon Township ( my, မင်္ဂလာဒုံ မြို့နယ် ) is located in the northernmost part of Yangon, Myanmar. The township comprises 31 wards, and shares borders with Hmawbi Township in the north, North Okkalapa Towns ...

. After Burma's independence in 1948, the Union of Burma Airways (UBA) was founded and started its domestic services to local airports including Mawlamyine (Moulmein) Airport. On 14 March 1949, a De Havilland DH.104 Dove 1 of the Union of Burma Airways, registration XY-ABO, crashed in Gulf of Mottama (Martaban) en route from Mingaladon Airport to Mawlamyine (Moulmein) Airport. Nine passengers and two crew (Captain P.H. Sparrow, pilot, and L.A. Stephens, radio officer) were lost. It was probably the first ever civilian plane crash in Burma's aviation history. In September 2013,

Nok Air Nok Air (, th, นกแอร์, derived from ''nok'' (นก), the Thai word for ''bird'') is a low-cost airline in Thailand operating mostly domestic services out of Bangkok's Don Mueang International Airport. Thai Airways International ow ...

Mini started flights between the Thai border town

Mae Sot Mae Sot ( th, แม่สอด, ; my, မဲဆောက်, ; shn, , ) is a city in western Thailand that shares a border with Myanmar to the west. It is notable as a trade hub and for its substantial population of Burmese migrants and refug ...

and Mawlamyine. This was the first time the airport handled international flights after 1948. However, Nok Air Mini stopped its service due to the poor condition of the runway and facilities.

Modernisation

The Mawlamyine Airport's runway is being upgraded in the 2018 budget year. A total of MMK 114 million will be spent to upgrade the runway.

History

Modernisation

Airlines and destinations

External links

References