Jump to content
You are not logged in ▶️ Click here to sign-up or login ×

AOT to consider closing Hat Yai, Chiang Rai airports

webfact

By webfact
in Thailand News

Recommended Posts

webfact Grand Master Member

webfact

Posted
Posted

AOT to consider closing Hat Yai, Chiang Rai airports

By THE NATION

 

800_71dc197cf4e7887.jpg?v=1572225210

 

Airports of Thailand (AOT) president Nitinai Sirismatthakarn says that AOT is considering closing two of its six airports that are seeing reduced use, namely Hat Yai International Airport in Songkhla province and Mae Fah Luang - Chiang Rai International Airport.

 

“In the next 5-6 years, AOT is planning to merge the Hat Yai Airport with Phuket Airport,” he said. “We are also drafting a plan to construct a second airport in the Phuket area.”

 

Nitinai noted that while Hat Yai is an economic centre of the South, it is not a travel hub. “People who travel to Hat Yai often find it difficult to catch a plane to other places,” he said. “Hat Yai Airport has seen a decline in tourists over the past few years, especially from neighboring countries like Malaysia, and visitors have gradually shifted their primary destination from Hat Yai to Phuket to take advantage of the abundance of connecting flights and tourist attractions there.

 

Nitinai added that in the 2019 fiscal year (Oct. 2018 – Sep. 2019), Hat Yai Airport serviced only 4.02 million passengers, a 5.6 per cent decrease over the previous year, while the number of flights also fell 7.4 per cent to a current slate of 2,027 flights annually.

 

Meanwhile, the Mae Fah Luang Airport is facing similar problems due to lack of connecting flights and facilities that have not yet been fully developed to attract foreign tourists.

 

Besides considering closing down and merging airports, AOT will be seeking additional sources of income to cover losses, such as renting the airport areas to private users and providing security services for other organizations.

 

The six airports under AOT administration are Suvarnabhumi Airport, Don Mueang International Airport, Phuket International Airport, Chiang Mai International Airport, Mae Fah Luang - Chiang Rai International Airport and Hat Yai International Airport.

 

Related Story: Suvarnabhumi to close one of its runways for repairs starting next month

Related Story: Don Mueang duty-free concession soon up for bids

 

Source: https://www.nationthailand.com/news/30377799

 

nation.jpg

-- © Copyright The Nation Thailand 2019-10-28
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Stocky Ruby Member

Stocky

Posted
Posted
1 hour ago, webfact said:

“In the next 5-6 years, AOT is planning to merge the Hat Yai Airport with Phuket Airport,” he said. “We are also drafting a plan to construct a second airport in the Phuket area.”

WFT!

 

This is a nonsense. You can't shut Hat Yai airport, there are 197 flights a week from Hat Yai to Bangkok, and the same number coming back. It's a busy route and most of those passengers are Thai, not everything is about tourists.

 

Merging with Phuket makes zero sense, who wants to take a 6hr drive to Phuket to catch a flight?  Quicker, and safer to go 3.5hr to Penang Airport, or 4hr to Krabi Airport.

 

.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
saengd Gold Member

saengd

Posted
Posted
34 minutes ago, Stocky said:

WFT!

 

This is a nonsense. You can't shut Hat Yai airport, there are 197 flights a week from Hat Yai to Bangkok, and the same number coming back. It's a busy route and most of those passengers are Thai, not everything is about tourists.

 

.

There's 28 flights a day from Hat Yai to Bangkok....really!

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Stocky Ruby Member

Stocky

Posted
Posted
9 minutes ago, ThomasThBKK said:

Guess that will have proper negative effects on Koh Lipe and co... i always used Hat Yai airport to go there. Well, another reason to stay on the gulf side.

The report is garbage, if they mean anything, they mean closing the International side, closing the domestic side of the airport just doesn't make any sense. Either AOT explained poorly or the reporter got it wrong.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
schondie Silver Member

schondie

Posted
Posted

Closing Hat Yai airport has got to be wrong, it's always busy when I use it. A couple of years ago my wife told me they were building an airport in Phatthalung, I laughed and said that it would never happen as it's a ridiculous idea. Lo and behold, last week a large VIP entourage came from Bangkok to look at the land for the airport. 

 

Close Hat Yai Airport but open a new one in a far sparsely populated area, you never know as TIT.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Tuvoc Silver Member

Tuvoc

Posted
Posted
1 hour ago, Stocky said:

The report is garbage, if they mean anything, they mean closing the International side, closing the domestic side of the airport just doesn't make any sense. Either AOT explained poorly or the reporter got it wrong.

 

I hope so. Chiang Rai airport seems very busy with domestic flights. I simply can't see it being closed altogether. If it disn't exist, what would you do ? Fly from BKK to Chiang Mai and then take a 4 hour bus ride ?

Link to comment
Share on other sites
ChrisY1 Platinum Member

ChrisY1

Posted
Posted
3 hours ago, Stocky said:

WFT!

 

This is a nonsense. You can't shut Hat Yai airport, there are 197 flights a week from Hat Yai to Bangkok, and the same number coming back. It's a busy route and most of those passengers are Thai, not everything is about tourists.

 

Merging with Phuket makes zero sense, who wants to take a 6hr drive to Phuket to catch a flight?  Quicker, and safer to go 3.5hr to Penang Airport, or 4hr to Krabi Airport.

 

.

Don't panic.....it's all a misunderstanding...

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Lacessit Star Member

Lacessit

Posted
Posted

I think AOT means they are considering closing the International section at Chiang Rai. It's certainly busy enough with domestic flights.

It's always been a mystery to me flights to Chiang Mai from Bangkok are more expensive than those to Chiang Rai, when Chiang Rai is 200 km further.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Mexlark Rookie Member

Mexlark

Posted
Posted
1 hour ago, marqus12 said:

Hat yai, Ranong, Chiang Rai ,
These despised visa runners kept these cities above the water.


These three cities are just the tip of the iceberg,
but it is clearly visible there.

Get a proper visa !!!! 555

Very few visa chasers use HDY. And not that many travel through the city any longer either. It's too much hassle. And you can always fly direct to Penang, if you have enough money to survive.

 

Big users are lots of government officials and politicians. Now you can just imagine them allowing this to happen, when the alternatives are either long bus, car or train journeys. And Only a few days ago they were talking about adding Betong to  the destinations. My guess is this is just AOT attempting to leverage the government for extra cash support.

 

Perhaps there is a misunderstanding in this report. Perhaps they are just thinking about it losing its international status; in which case it would perhaps then be run by a different authority (whose name currently eludes me).

 

And how about private enterprise running it, if AOT is no longer capable. Is AOT really any more efficient than Thai Airways, for example. It must have some quite similar financial problems. An example of that is that HDY was dragging its feet about 10 years ago because the plane parking fees were too high. They had to be pushed into accepting more competitive fees. Once that was done, a lot of budget airlines added extra services.

 

But they are not going to be able to completely close it anyway, because the air force shares the runway. And RTAF probably don't want to lose their frequent flyers to Bangkok either.

 

So perhaps this just refers to its international status.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites
worgeordie Star Member

worgeordie

Posted
Posted

My wife was at Hat Yai just a couple of days ago,and said

it was very busy,no where to find a seat,while Surat Thani,

airport not so busy.I think this will be like the Thai Air statement

 they made that they will quit flying to Laos,Cambodia, 

and Burma,then a couple days later retracted it,saying it was

not true.

regards worgeordie

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Mexlark Rookie Member

Mexlark

Posted
Posted

To add to my previous comments. I note that a Thai person reading a Thai report also came away with the notion that they were thinking about closing the entire airport. But we all know here from our long experience of local English language correspondents that they often have no real knowledge of their subject background. I see reports on a daily basis where the correspondent obviously hasn't bothered to check the facts properly.

 

So let's just say that they are actually thinking of making Phuket the international hub for the entire South. that would inevitably mean MORE connecting flights to Phuket from neighboring airports. And some other authority other than AOT might have to run HDY. I'm not even sure if a Hat-Yai to Phuket service currently exists. Quite a few airlines have tried to run it over the years. It's always been more of a frequent failure than a frequent flyer.

 

It is true though, that there aren't many international flights out of HDY. I suppose Singaporeans would just have to buy their second homes on Phuket.

 

One also imagines that the airport would still have to be used for Haji flights to Mecca. Now that is an interesting phenomenon. Hajis used to be accomodated in a big marquee in the airport village. I was there one day when a rather decrepid-looking 1-2-Go 747 turned up. The hajis were then bussed in through a side gate, direct from the marquee. Their paperwork had obviously all been done before they got on the bus, and AOT definitely did not want them passing through the International terminal. Is it still done the same way now, I wonder.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Tuvoc Silver Member

Tuvoc

Posted
Posted
29 minutes ago, Lacessit said:

 

It's always been a mystery to me flights to Chiang Mai from Bangkok are more expensive than those to Chiang Rai, when Chiang Rai is 200 km further.

 

Well I'm not complaining ????

 

if you book far enough ahead, BKK to CEI is remarkably cheap as you say, so I always try to plan ahead.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Eligius Rookie Member

Eligius

Posted
Posted
4 hours ago, baansgr said:

Yet last week Malayans were up 6% at 2.5 million....or maybe it is just for a connecting flight at Phuket or just those border town sex pats for a few hours....more doom and gloom....daily now, closures, redundancies, etc

Yes. This is bad news for anyone who uses Hatyai airport fairly frequently. Hatyai is the third or fourth largest city in Thailand - so to shut down its airport is ludicrous. If people who live and work in Hatyai will have, in future, to motor all the way to Phuket in order to fly, this will only add to congestion on the roads and will likely increase traffic accidents.

 

I hope that this idiotic and non-thought-through plan to shut down Hatyai Airport will NOT go ahead. It will be a major inconvenience for many people indeed. Or is it only a plan to stop international flights? Nothing in Thailand is ever clearly explained - or if it is, it gets changed anyway!

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

Go to topic listing

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.




×
×
  • Create New...