Six Thai airports are growing out of their jacket: Passenger waiting times are increasing
The number of passengers at Thailand's six main airports (Suvarnabhumi, Don Mueang, Phuket, Chiang Mai, Chiang Rai and Hat Yai) has increased to such an extent that there is structurally insufficient capacity. These airports, including Suvarnabhumi and low-cost carrier hub Don Mueang, handled a total of 129 million passengers. That is 32,7 million or 33,9% more than the total design capacity of 96,5 million passengers per year.
Total passenger traffic through the airports of the Airports of Thailand Plc (AoT) increased by 30% in this financial year (through September 7,7) compared to the previous year. The Thai airports recorded 823.574 aircraft movements (takeoffs and landings), an increase of 6%.
Due to the growth of tourism, the difference between the design capacity and the actual occupancy rate will continue to grow. An undesirable situation because travelers are increasingly complaining about the long waiting times at Suvarnabhumi, Don Mueang and Phuket. For example, Suvarnabhumi has a capacity for 45 million passengers per year, but the actual number this financial year was 59.1 million passengers.
Don Mueang handled 37,2 million passengers, 7,2% more than the year before. The airport is built for a capacity of 30 million passengers per year. Phuket handled 16,2 million passengers, which is 10,3% more than the previous year. The airport has a design capacity of only 8 million passengers per year.
The total number of international passengers passing through all six AoT airports rose 6,6% to 72,5 million, while domestic passenger traffic increased 9,3% to 56,7 million. The largest number of foreigners using the airports come from China, South Korea, Japan, India and Malaysia.
The top five airlines that transported the largest number of passengers through the airports are AirAsia, Thai Airways International, Thai Lion Air, Nok Air and Bangkok Airways.
At the end of this financial year, a total of 135 airlines were flying from the six airports, 37 of which were budget airlines, to more than 200 destinations in 57 countries.
Source: Bangkok Post
well,
Terminal 3 and all Cargo buildings (6 units) are still empty at Don Muang, so there is still sufficient capacity here. And built for 30 million travelers? then everyone has surely forgotten about the “old” airport. Then the Boeing's 747 were waiting for each other to be “unloaded” and if you look now, it is busy, but there are still gates empty, so it is not that busy now. Don Muang has more than 60 gates.
AirAsia had asked to be allowed to use the space of the vacant cargo to build their own terminal for AirAsia at their expense, but was rejected by AOT. How arrogant can you be.
Gerrit
But if so many tourists come , where are they ? It's empty here in Hua Hin, it's never been this bad before, and I hear the same from the other beach towns as well as Chang Mai.
Where are they anyway?
Many of these tourists already come from China. They sit in the hotel in the evening playing karaoke in a room. A busy program during the day and they do not like sun and beach.
The question is which capacity problems we are actually talking about. Does it concern the number of runways, the number of gates, the distance or time it takes the passenger from the gate to customs, the number of counters and the speed of immigration and customs checks, the speed of baggage handling, the speed with which passengers leave the airport and there are a few logistical elements to mention.
It is also clear that the solutions differ in terms of investment and duration. Automating the immigration procedure is very different from building a new runway. And then I'm not even talking about revitalizing smaller airports (e.g. Roi-et, Chumporn) to relieve the big one.