ANA cancels bid for stake in Myanmar carrier

“At today's Board of Directors meeting, ANA Holdings Limited  decided not to proceed with its planned equity investment in the Myanmar-based airline Asian Wings Airways Limited, first announced on August 27, 2013,” ANA said in a statement.

ANA Holdings is the parent company of All Nippon Airways. It had planned to invest US$25 million to purchase a 49 per cent stake in Asian Wings. Reports said it would lease aircraft to Asian Wings as well as train its pilots.

 Today’s announcement cited several reasons for the cancellation of the plan, including increased competition in Myanmar’s rapidly expanding aviation sector.

It said that following last year’s planned investment “competition

between new and old airlines in Myanmar has intensified, bringing rapid changes in the external environment”.

     These changes called “into question the assumptions made at the time of the original decision”, the statement said. “Ultimately,

negotiations for the capital participation with [Asian Wings] were unable to reach an agreement, and the investment  plan was canceled as a result,” it said.

 Asian Wings was only formed in 2010 and flies domestic routes. Its ownership has been the subject of speculation in Myanmar media, with some linking it to Htoo Group chairman Tay Za. The tycoon, who also owns Air Bagan, is on the US Treasury Department’s Specially Designated Nationals list. Promotional brochures from the Myanmar Civil Aviation Development Conference 2014 listed Tay Za as the airline’s owner, but the officials at Asian Wings have said this was a mistake.

Air Bagan does, however, have a code-sharing arrangement with Asian Wings.

The planned investment was part of ANA's internatioal expansion plan, and would have been the first investment in a Myanmar-based commercial airline by a foreign carrier.

    Asian Wings is based in Yangon. Besides its domestic routes it flies to Chiang Mai.

    In related news Myanmar Airways International (MAI) will begin regular flights to Japan and South Korea in October, the carrier said.

Aye Maya Thar, MAI's marketing and public relations manager, said it had been selling tickets for flights from Yangon to South Korea since last year through a code-sharing agreement with Korean Air and Korean carrier Asiana Airlines.

Flights to Korea will begin in the second week of October and flights to Japan will start in the last week of the month, she said. It will fly to both countries three times a week.

She said it had also commenced charter flights to South Korea and Japan in February.

MAI also signed an agreement with the United Arab Emirates on March 10 to become the first airline from Myanmar to fly to the UAE. The flights will start next year but the exact date has yet to be announced.

MAI has a fleet of seven 180-seat A320 Airbus and two 120-seat A319 Airbus jets.

Its current destinations from Yangon are Bangkok, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Guangzhou, Siem Reap, and Phnom Penh.

MAI announced that it had signed a memorandum of understanding with Japan-based HAMA Inc to set up a joint venture to expand flights between the two countries.