New airports for Chiang Mai, Phuket

[reader]

From Khaosod English

 

BANGKOK — The decision to build new airports at two top tourist destinations was welcomed by the head of the tourism department Friday as a means to support ever-growing tourist arrivals.

 

Two days after the national airport operator announced it would build two new airports to service Chiang Mai and Phuket, Yuthasak Supasorn, director of the Tourism Authority of Thailand, said it was a good sign for the industry, which is a significant source of income to the country.

 

“It would help ease the congestion in both places,” he said. “Especially for Chiang Mai’s airport, which doesn’t operate at all hours, the expansion will be of great help.”

 

Nitinai Sirismatthakarn, president of Airports of Thailand, or AOT, said Tuesday it approved 120 billion baht to build the new airports over the next five years and expects them to be operating by 2025.

 

He said both would have capacity for 10 million passengers and international flights annually.

Last year, 9.9 million passengers passed through Chiang Mai’s airport (CNX), while that of Phuket (HKT) welcomed 16.2 million passengers, according to AOT.

 

 

http://www.khaosodenglish.com/featured/2018/05/25/chiang-mai-phuket-second-airports-will-be-great-help/

[GWMinUS]

So will these be in addition to the existing Airports?

A capacity of 10 million passengers does not sound adequate given the larger numbers of arrivals at each City...

But having two separate Airports seems a bad decision.

Of course it works in the UK and some Cities here in the USA.

[spoon]

Most likely they will separate the airport into either low cost carrier and premium or separate domestic and international terminal if they have two airports. Kuala lumpur have 2 airports very close to each other, one was of course the klia with recent expansion of klia2 for low cost airport, and another airport subang, which used to be the only airport, and now only serving domestic and chartered airplanes. Eitherway, it will definitely split the crowd.

[PeterRS]

They will be new separate airports from the existing ones. Seems neither existing airport has enough land to permit further airport expansion. So the new second airports will be 20-30 kms away. The one for Phuket will be on the mainland north of the island nearer Phangna.

[Guest]

But having two separate Airports seems a bad decision.

 

Separate airports managed by competing companies would be good for consumer choice and for standards.    

After all, it's difficult to make excuses for incompetence when the company up the road is doing a way better job.

 

In the UK, things seem to have picked up noticeably since the operation of Heathrow, Gatwick & Stanstead were hived off to separate companies. 

[GWMinUS]

I would dread the need to transfer between Airports.

It is bad enough in Los Angeles International.

You have to wait for the "A" Bus, which may or may not come, then transfer from one of the Domestic Airlines to the International Terminal. And need to LUG your suitcases on and off the Bus.

I can see why people book on United at LAX. Everything is in one terminal.

Similar in San Francisco. But at least they have a Rail Shuttle.

BUT if you fly into Dallas or Chicago on Southwest, you must plan to take a Bus across the City to the Terminal for International Flights.

So I just hope Phuket and Chang Mai do not go this direction.

But then 2050 is a long time off. Old Me may not have to worry about these things...

HAHAHA

[PeterRS]

Hopefully there will be improvements coming in Bangkok with tenders soon going out for the rail link between its two airports and Utapao.

[Guest]

Any decent rail link that connects the 2 airports and Utapao would be very useful, since some kind of station serving Pattaya would be part of the deal & I expect a train from Don Mueang to Pattaya should be faster than any taxi. 

After that, Pattaya could  benefit from a basic Metro or tram system.