Budget airline group AirAsia says it has ditched plans to start an airline joint venture in Myanmar, at least for the time being.
Discussions with an unnamed partner in the country have ended.
"We are not moving ahead with Myanmar at the moment. We might revisit that but we’ve decided not to go into Myanmar just yet," group CEO Tony Fernandes said in an interview.
The airline currently serves Yangon and Mandalay from Kuala Lumpur and Bangkok.
A local partnership led JV would have given the airline a far more significant footprint in the country and Fernandes says that would enable AirAsia to cover about 95% of the Southeast Asia region.
Negotiations have now come to a halt in Myanmar but AirAsia’s upcoming Vietnam joint venture is still on track to begin flying by early 2019, Fernandes confirmed.
