Has anyone flown within Myanmar? Could you please describe the various airlines? Do they charge for luggage? How can you buy tickets before you go there? How reliable are the flight times? How is the service?

There is baggage allowance.

You probably have to buy ticket earlier if you'r taking the hot routes.

Service? none.

Flight time? best effort

AirBagan, Air Mandalay,Myanmar Air, etc

I had a travel agent book my flights within Myanmar (before I got there). No problems. We had a decent baggage allowance (25 kilos?), the flights were all on time, and the in-flight service was good. The flight attendants were very helpful and polite, we received drinks & meals/snacks even on the short 40 minute flights, and some flights had open seating, which was nice because my companions and I each got 2 seats to ourselves. The airports are quite small and seem unorganized at times, but if you can get over that, it was actually a fairly pleasant country to fly in.

I had a travel agent book my flights within Myanmar (before I got there). No problems. We had a decent baggage allowance (25 kilos?), the flights were all on time, and the in-flight service was good. The flight attendants were very helpful and polite, we received drinks & meals/snacks even on the short 40 minute flights, and some flights had open seating, which was nice because my companions and I each got 2 seats to ourselves. The airports are quite small and seem unorganized at times, but if you can get over that, it was actually a fairly pleasant country to fly in.

Do you have the contacts of the travel agent you booked with? Sounds like your flight was not full. Where did you go and what time of year were you flying?

Some flights were full, some weren't, which was nice because the planes were small and the seats were quite small as well. I sent you a PM with more details.

To fly into Myanmar you have 3 choices originating in Thailand and a large number of indirect routings (via KUL, SIN, many other SE Asian cities, KMG and other Chinese airports) depending on your budget, current location, time schedule and frequent flyer requirements.

The direct flights are:

BKK-RGN with Air Asia, Thai, Bangkok, or MAI.

CNX- RGN with Air Bagan

HKT-RGN with Air Bagan. Condor is running FRA-RGN-HKT flights from Nov 2012 and you might be able to grab the HKT-RGN leg.

Air Mandalay is the preferred domestic airline together with Air Bagan in terms of reliability, efficiency and safety (but everything is relative to Myanmar standards!) Asian Wings is not bad but largely handles tour groups. Personally I would avoid Myanma Airways domestically and certainly Air KBZ, had a nasty little prang at SNW in February due to some interesting pilot manoeuvres.

Flights tend to be pretty full in winter months Nov-Mar and less so in the hot/wet season due to growing popularity with well-off tourists not keen on long distance bus journeys.

Air Mandalay used to fly CNX-RGN and is talking about restarting this route. Air Bagan is also considering a CNX-SNW route but I wouldn't hold my breath on that, nice as it may be.

You can guarantee that all sorts of new routings will open up in the next couple of years, if current trajectory is maintained.

The only flights to MDL are China Eastern from KMG and I believe somewhere else in China. If the Mae Sai border ever opens up full time you could grab a domestic flight from Tachilek to MDL, here's hoping.

Has anyone flown to Naypyidaw yet?

I have used this woman for all my Burma travels over the past 7 [email protected] name is dimple.....AND she can get you VOA.......$30 fee....very simple, just email application & copy of passport.

I flew quite a few times with Asian Wings. No problems at all. Good service and never had any isues. See: http://www.asianwingsair.com/

Bought my tickets either in Bangkok or just at a travel agency somewhere.