Myanmar's Hanthawaddy Airport Delayed, December 2016 Completion Date Impossible

Negotiations for the contract to build Myanmar’s Hanthawaddy Airport, originally granted to a consortium led by South Korea’s Incheon Airport, has fallen apart, and the license is now up for grabs again.

Incheon won the sought-after tender in August, with three other consortia led by Singapore’s Changi Airport Planners, France’s Vinci Airport and Japan’s Taisei Airport selected as backups. But negotiations with Incheon never materialized and now all four consortia are being asked to resubmit their financial proposals, the Myanmar Times reported Monday.

“They don’t need to resubmit their existing technical proposals on design, construction, operation and maintenance,” U Win Swe Tun, deputy director general of Myanmar’s Department of Civil Aviation, said last week. The new deadline will be April 22.

“For these reasons, the December 2016 completion date cannot be met,” U Win Swe Tun told the Myanmar Times. “The project starting date and completion date will be announced in the near future after selection of the winning consortium.”

The new airport will be located on 9,000 acres about 48 miles outside the commercial center and former capital of Yangon (Rangoon). Construction began in March 1994, but long stagnated and halted completely in October 2003. The airport is projected to have an annual capacity of 10 million passengers.

As Hanthawaddy has been pushed back, however, Myanmar’s international passenger traffic will continue to be handled at Yangon International Airport, which will increase capacity from the current 2.7 million passengers per year to 3.5 million by 2015, and 6 million by 2019, according to the Myanmar Times.