Mandalay International Airport (IATA: MDL, ICAO: VYMD), located 35 km south of Mandalay in Tada-U is one of three international airports in Myanmar. Completed in 1999, it replaced the old Mandalay Chanmyathazi Airport was the city's main airport, and it was the largest and most modern airport in the country until the modernization of Yangon International Airport in 2008. The airport connects 11 domestic and seven international destinations. Its 4,267-meter (13,999-foot) runway is the longest runway in use in Southeast Asia and can handle up to 3 million passengers a year.
The Mandalay International Airport project was first conceived by the Burmese military government in the mid-1990s as a way to increase overall levels of foreign investment and tourism in Myanmar. With Yangon boasting the only other international airport in the whole country, the new Mandalay airport was regarded as crucial in achieving a planned 10% annual passenger growth. The hope was for Mandalay to become a hub for flights to other major Asian cities, in particular Beijing, Hanoi, Bangkok, Kolkata, and Dhaka.
On November 16, 2014, a consortium of Mitsubishi Group and an affiliate of Japan Airlines signed a concession agreement with the Myanmar government to operate the airport for 30 years. The joint firm undertook the operation, rehabilitation, and maintenance of airport facilities, including terminal buildings and the airport's sole runway, excluding air traffic control, with operations having begun around March 2015. The agreement's main focus is to generate further expansion of Domestic and international flights to Mandalay and to increase passenger traffic through the airport.
