The ban on domestic air travel, scheduled to end at the end of September, has been extended one full month as COVID-19 infections continue to soar.
Yet the grounding may last much longer; the government tends to set travel bans in one month periods, and then extend them as needed. The ban on international flights, for example, has been extended exactly one month every month since it was imposed in March.

This ban on domestic flights has serious implications for Myanmar tourism, which has suffered since the earliest days of the pandemic. The country has resigned itself to a long-term ban on most international flights, allowing only limited emergency flights in and out. Yet domestic flights resumed in May, and the NLD government said bolstering in-country travel would play a key role in restoring Myanmar’s once-booming tourism and hospitality industries. Yet now the virus rages within Myanmar as well as without, and hopes of a robust domestic tourism industry have been dashed for the foreseeable future.

For aviation in particular, the COVID-19 pandemic will almost certainly be a watershed moment. The aviation industry had struggled to take off in Myanmar’s democratic era, with a number of domestic airlines, such as FMI Air, shutting down a few years after launch. Yet 2019 showed promise for the sector, with a rise in tourists, especially from China, and development of new destinations, prompting several airlines to expand their fleets and add new routes. Whether or not it can recapture this momentum will be a key question for the industry when the pandemic finally subsides.