Mandalay International Airport ( my, မန္တလေး အပြည်ပြည်ဆိုင်ရာ လေဆိပ်; ), located 35 km south of Mandalay in Tada-U, is one of three international airports in

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 Wells explai ...

. Completed in 1999, it was the largest and most modern airport in the country until the modernization of

Yangon International Airport Yangon International Airport ( ) is the primary and busiest international airport of Myanmar. The airport is located in Mingaladon, north of central Yangon. All ten Myanmar carriers and about 30 international airlines operate at Yangon Intern ...

in 2008. The airport connects 11 domestic and seven international destinations. Its runway is the longest runway in use in

Southeast Asia Southeast Asia, also spelled South East Asia and South-East Asia, and also known as Southeastern Asia, South-eastern Asia or SEA, is the geographical south-eastern region of Asia, consisting of the regions that are situated south of mainlan ...

and has the capacity to handle up to 3 million passengers a year. The airport is the main operating base of

Golden Myanmar Airlines Golden Myanmar Airlines ( my, ရွှေမြန်မာ လေကြောင်းလိုင်း) is an airline in Myanmar currently offering domestic flights. It was established in August 2012. It was formed by 15 investors including th ...

History

The Mandalay International Airport project was first conceived by the Burmese military government in the mid-1990s as a way to increase overall levels of foreign investment and tourism in Myanmar. With

Yangon Yangon ( my, ရန်ကုန်; ; ), formerly spelled as Rangoon, is the capital of the Yangon Region and the largest city of Myanmar (also known as Burma). Yangon served as the capital of Myanmar until 2006, when the military government ...

boasting the only other international airport in the whole country, the new Mandalay airport was regarded as crucial in achieving a planned 10% annual passenger growth. The hope was for Mandalay to become a hub for flights to other major Asian cities, in particular

Beijing } Beijing ( ; ; ), alternatively romanized as Peking ( ), is the capital of the People's Republic of China. It is the center of power and development of the country. Beijing is the world's most populous national capital city, with over 21 ...

Hanoi Hanoi or Ha Noi ( or ; vi, Hà Nội ) is the capital and second-largest city of Vietnam. It covers an area of . It consists of 12 urban districts, one district-leveled town and 17 rural districts. Located within the Red River Delta, Hanoi is ...

Bangkok Bangkok, officially known in Thai as Krung Thep Maha Nakhon and colloquially as Krung Thep, is the capital and most populous city of Thailand. The city occupies in the Chao Phraya River delta in central Thailand and has an estimated populati ...

Kolkata Kolkata (, or , ; also known as Calcutta , the official name until 2001) is the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal, on the eastern bank of the Hooghly River west of the border with Bangladesh. It is the primary business, comme ...

, and

Dhaka Dhaka ( or ; bn, ঢাকা, Ḍhākā, ), formerly known as Dacca, is the capital and largest city of Bangladesh, as well as the world's largest Bengali-speaking city. It is the eighth largest and sixth most densely populated city i ...

. On 16 November 2014, a consortium of

Mitsubishi Group The is a group of autonomous Japanese multinational companies in a variety of industries. Founded by Yatarō Iwasaki in 1870, the Mitsubishi Group historically descended from the Mitsubishi zaibatsu, a unified company which existed from 1870 ...

and an affiliate from

Japan Airlines , also known as JAL (''Jaru'') or , is an international airline and Japan's flag carrier and largest airline as of 2021 and 2022, headquartered in Shinagawa, Tokyo. Its main hubs are Tokyo's Narita International Airport and Haneda Airport, as w ...

signed a concession agreement with the Myanmar government to operate the airport for 30 years. The joint firm undertook the operation, rehabilitation, and maintenance of airport facilities, including terminal buildings and the airport's sole runway, excluding air traffic control, with operations having begun around March 2015. The agreement's main focus is to generate further expansion of domestic and international flights to Mandalay and to increase passenger traffic through the airport.

Airlines and destinations

According to the official website, after the

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and the

2021 Myanmar coup d'état A coup d'état in Myanmar began on the morning of 1 February 2021, when democratically elected members of the country's ruling party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), were deposed by the Tatmadaw—Myanmar's military—which then ves ...

, the only international airlines operating from Mandalay are

Myanmar Airways International Myanmar Airways International Co., Ltd. ( my, အပြည်ပြည်ဆိုင်ရာ မြန်မာ့လေကြောင်းလိုင်း) is a privately owned airline headquartered in Yangon, Myanmar. It operates sched ...

, operating flights to Suvarnabhumi Airport and

Thai AirAsia Thai AirAsia (, th, ไทยแอร์เอเชีย) is a joint venture of Malaysian low-fare airline AirAsia ( th, แอร์เอเชีย) and Thailand's Asia Aviation. It serves AirAsia's regularly scheduled domestic and int ...

, operating flights to

Don Mueang International Airport Don Mueang International Airport ( th, ท่าอากาศยานดอนเมือง, , , or colloquially as , ) is one of two international airports serving the Bangkok Metropolitan Region, the other one being Suvarnabhumi Airp ...

. Domestic airlines such as

Myanmar National Airlines Myanmar National Airlines ( my, မြန်မာအမျိုးသားလေကြောင်း ), formerly Union of Burma Airways, Burma Airways, and Myanma Airways, is a state-owned airline and the flag carrier of Myanmar, based in ...

Air KBZ Air KBZ ( my, အဲကေဘီဇက်) is a privately owned domestic Myanmar airline based in Yangon. Air Kanbawza, otherwise known as AIR KBZ, was established in June 2010. The airline began operations with a Yangon- Bagan- Nyaung Oo- Mandal ...

, and

Air Thanlwin Air Thanlwin () is an airline based in Yangon, Myanmar, offering scheduled and chartered domestic flights from its base at Yangon International Airport. The airline was rebranded in October 2019 from Yangon Airways which was founded in 1996. As ...

are still operating domestic flights.

Airport facilities

Opened on 17 September 2000, the terminal building can handle 1,000 passenger arrivals and 1,000 passenger departures per hour. The capacity of the airport is estimated to be 3 million passengers per annum, with an expansion capacity of more than 15 million. The site occupies a total area of 10,123 hectares and is located in central Myanmar about south of Mandalay near the town of Tada-U. The journey from the airport to the city center of Mandalay takes approximately an hour by car. The concrete runway at Mandalay Airport is long and wide, and long enough for any size of commercial aircraft to land. The car park accommodates 700 vehicles. The terminal is fitted with air conditioning, fire protection and emergency power generating systems. It is also equipped with six passenger lifts, one freight lift, three escalators, and a baggage handling system. Three out of the six-passenger boarding bridges can handle modern Boeing 747-8I aircraft. There is sufficient space for ten aircraft to anchor, and at a rate of 8 minutes per plane, aircraft of any size and make can touch down or take off to any destination abroad. MAGS (Mandalay Airport Ground Services) provides both passenger and cargo aircraft ground services. Systems incorporated into the airport include VHF and HF SSB transmitters and receivers, a voice communication control system, an automatic terminal information system (ATIS), and an aeronautical fixed telecommunications network. The air traffic control tower is equipped with a variety of radar and navigation systems.

Passenger facilities

, these facilities exist at the airport: *36 check-in desks *8 gates *6 air-bridges *3 baggage claim belts *11 short-term parking spaces *6 long-term parking spaces *Post office and bank *

Bureau de Change A bureau de change (plural bureaux de change, both ) (British English) or currency exchange (American English) is a business where people can exchange one currency for another. Nomenclature Although originally French, the term "bureau de chang ...

*Restaurants and VIP lounges *Duty-free facilities *Newsagent/tobacconist *Travel agency, tourist helpdesk and car rental

Statistics

Top destinations

Traffic by calendar year

Operator changes

Airport operations and maintenance are handled by a joint venture of

Mitsubishi Corporation is Japan's largest trading company (sogo shosha) and a member of the Mitsubishi keiretsu. As of 2022, Mitsubishi Corporation employs over 80,000 people and has ten business segments, including finance, banking, energy, machinery, chemical ...

, JALUX Inc., and SPA Project Management Ltd., which won a bid in 2013 to upgrade and operate the airport for 30 years. The previous operator was Myanmar's Ministry of Transport. In August 2013, the vendor technical team started the inspection of the airport to develop an airport Master Plan that included airport services and cargo-handling areas as well as anticipating future needs such as extending the airport's buildings.

Incidents

On 12 May 2019,

flight 103 from Yangon, carrying 82 passengers and seven crew, was approaching Mandalay International Airport when the front landing gear was unable to be extended. An emergency landing was conducted without the front landing gear. No injuries were sustained in this accident.

Gallery

File:Mandalay International Airport.jpg File:Mandalay Airport.JPG File:MANDALAY INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT MYANMAR FEB 2013 (8582759064).jpg File:MANDALAY INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT MYANMA FEB2013 (8502999917).jpg File:THAI AIR ASIA AIRBUS A320 HS-ABW AT MANDALAY INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT MYANMAR FEB 2013 (8582753672).jpg File:Mandalay airport 3.jpg, The runways seen from the air File:Mandalay airport 1.jpg File:Myanmar Entry Stamp.jpg, Tourist entry stamp

External links

Mandalay International Airport Mjas MC-Jalux Airport Services Co., Ltd.

References

{{authority control Buildings and structures in Mandalay Mandalay Airports in Myanmar Airports established in 2000 2000 establishments in Myanmar