Airports see recovery & rise in holiday season traffic
Passenger traffic through all six of Thailand's main airports this holiday season is enjoying a healthy recovery from a year ago, when the political turmoil depressed growth. This holiday season (Christmas-New Years season, the period between Dec 26 and Jan 5 ) is projected to see an 8.5% increase in passengers, a total of 3.4 million passengers or 309,111 a day with 2,010 takeoffs and landings a day at the six main airports run by Airports of Thailand (AoT). The rise reflects the return in air traffic growth throughout the country, driven by the post-coup political stability that has been reviving inbound tourism.
All but two of the six AoT-operated airports envisage a double-digit growth in the period, while Suvarnabhumi and Phuket airports see a decline. Suvarnabhumi, the airport that most people enter and leave the country from, expects a 4.4% drop in passenger traffic due partly to the airport's limited capacity and budget airlines moving to Don Mueang, Bangkok's other airport, now one of Southeast Asia's largest low-cost carrier (LCC) hubs. In the current holiday season, Don Mueang is expected to handle 43.4% more passengers and 25.3% more flights than a year ago.
Phuket, the country's third busiest airport, will see a 2.5% drop in passenger throughput due to the airport's limited capacity where demand has been far exceeding capacity for years. In Chiang Mai passenger traffic was up by 21.4% and Chiang Rai had 26.2% growth in passenger volumes.