Mae Hong Son isolated…
Mae Hong Son‘s economy, especially its tourism industry, is in limbo due to the dearth of flights linking Thailand’s most mountainous province with the outside world.
The abrupt withdrawal of air service between Chiang Mai and Mae Hong Son by the now-defunct Nok Mini in late March left the province served by merely a single carrier — Kan Air. For its Chiang Mai – Mae Hong Son fligths, Kan Air uses a Cessna Grand Caravan 208B, a single-engine turboprop with 12 seats, much smaller than Nok Mini’s 34-seat Saab A340B turboprop that previously plied the route.
The departure of Nok Mini, which once operated a daily service on the route, means a dramatic cutback in capacity, as Kan Air‘s three existing daily flights simply cannot cope with air travel demand.
Mae Hong Son Governor Surapol Panasampon yesterday told the Bangkok Post the province was underserved and that this was badly hurting tourism, considered the province’s main economic lifeline, as air travel is the only quick way in.
It can take up to 8-9 hours to travel by regular bus to Mae Hong Son from Chiang Mai due to the mountainous terrain and winding roads, he said. The travel needs of the general public have also been affected. Mae Hong Son is a major tourist destination in the North. Tourism-related revenue is estimated at 2 billion baht a year from 600,000 visitors, just after Chiang Mai regionally.
Adding insult to injury is the Civil Aviation Department’s alleged foot-dragging in granting permission for Kan Air to add regular night flights between Chiang Mai and Mae Hong Son. The governor said the province on April 9 submitted a letter to the department requesting that Kan Air be allowed to operate additional flights, but no response has been received so far.
Scores of Mae Hong Son residents converged on the department’s Ngam Duphli office in Bangkok yesterday to inquire about the progress of the request for extra flights. Mr Surapol said he had urged Thai Lion Air, a unit of Indonesia’s giant Lion airline group, to start serving Mae Hong Son from Chiang Mai using 70-seat ATR-72 turboprops.
“We’d like to see them providing one or two flights a day in the current low season before ramping up to three or four in the cool season [which is the province’s peak travel season],’’ he said. But that possibility has become bogged down by the absence of traffic rights, as licences have been granted only to Kan Air and Nok Mini.
Siam General Aviation, operating under the name of Nok Mini, in March ended its four-year alliance with the budget carrier Nok Air and offered itself for sale to Thai AirAsia.
Somphong Sooksanguan, president of Kannithi Aviation, operator of Kan Air, yesterday said the airline stood ready to offer a fourth daily flight at night as soon as permission was granted.
Source: Bangkok Post
