MASkargo has launched a freighter flight to Myanmar to meet demand growth.
The airline had been serving Yangon (RGN) through its passenger flights but increases in demand mean the Malaysia-hubbed carrier has decided to start a weekly freighter service between the city, Bangkok (BKK) and Kuala Lumpur.
The service will utilise an A330 freighter offering around 60 tonnes of capacity. The first flight took place on July 4.
Jason Thomas, MASkargo's chief commercial officer, said: "Yangon is not a new destination for MASkargo as we have been serving the Myanmar market for many years using our passenger flights.
"Of late, the demand into and out of Myanmar has been on the increase which convinced us on the viability of flying our freighter into the country."
"From Yangon, the freighter goes to Bangkok — another market which has shown an uptrend in recent times.
"There is high demand for movement of general cargo ex Bangkok as well as odd-sized cargo. Hence our decision to pair these two cities on our freighter flight path."
Thomas added that the service can also be utilised for demand to and from the European Union (EU) and is part of efforts to diversify its network.
"This is also part of our efforts to develop greater engagement in diversifying economic interests given the disruption presented by the Covid-19 pandemic," Thomas said.
"The EU-ASEAN trade has been growing at a very encouraging pace. As a matter of fact, the Netherlands was the largest importer of goods from ASEAN in 2019.
"Now that we have a freighter service into Schiphol, this RGN-BKK line is the perfect solution to support the EU-ASEAN trade."
