ASEAN members integrating aviation market

BANGKOK, August 27 (TNA) - Thailand hosts the 26th meeting of the ASEAN working group on air transportation from August 27-30, aimed at allowing member countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to integrate their now separate aviation markets in the lead-up to the formation of the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) by 2015. Woradet Hanprasert, Director-General of Thailand Department of Civil Aviation and chair of the ASEAN working group on air transportation, inaugurated the four-day regional meeting in Bangkok on Monday, in which representatives of public and private aviation agencies of the 10 ASEAN member countries participate. The ASEAN aviation markets, once integrated, are expected to facilitate the movements of people within the ASEAN grouping and between the 10-nation bloc and the international community. The meeting includes separate sessions of sub-working groups on aviation-related economic cooperation, aviation techniques, aviation negotiations and ASEAN airlines and the meeting of the ASEAN-India Working Group on Regional Air Service Arrangement or AWIG-RASA. Woradet told reporters that agendas on the integration of the ASEAN aviation markets, focused on aviation liberalization, include roadmaps for the integration in economic and technical aspects, and that ASEAN member states are developing common instruments and measures to standardize their aviation safety and air traffic control. The director-general of the Department of Civil Aviation expressed his confidence that Thailand would remain as a convenient destination of global travellers after the integration of the ASEAN aviation markets and Thai Airways International or THAI, the national flag carrier, is acquiring a new fleet of aircraft and is expanding its international routes, suggesting that THAI further boost its cargo transportation, as it has accounted for only half of the national airline's overall aviation services so far. (TNA)