AoT reports May gains

BANGKOK, 21 June 2012: Airports of Thailand’s latest passenger and aircraft movement data for May, covering six airports, showed slight improvements in volumes.

Aircraft movements at all of its managed airports improved 9.26% from 36,596 to 39,985 movements and passenger traffic gained 11.6% from 5,026,279 to 5,609,089 people.

Suvarnabhumi International Airport, the country’s main gateway, reported gains in both in aircraft movements and passenger traffic. International aircraft movements improved 7.10% from 17,684 to 18,940. Domestic movements improved by an impressive 25.96% from 5,928 to 7,467.

International passenger traffic improved 9.14% from 2,887,316 to 3,151,238. Domestic passenger traffic grew 34.91% up from 730,327 to 985,281.

Phuket International Airport continued to impress in May with international aircraft movements up 10.98% from 2,113 to 2,345 movements. Domestic movements improved 4.31% from 2,320 to 2,420.

International passenger traffic grew 12.44% (271,262 to 305,018). On the domestic side, traffic grew 13.20% (287,469 to 325,422).

Chiang Mai International Airport also reported growth in both aircraft movements and passenger traffic. International aircraft movements increased 23.26% from 301 to 371. Domestic movements grew 2.32% from 2,417 to 2,473.

International passenger traffic grew 20.21% (27,635 to 33,221), while domestic grew 12.14% (243,913 to 273,532).

Don Mueang Airport, the domestic airport in Bangkok continued to register declines in aircraft movements and passenger traffic of 0.08% (3,942 to 3,939) and 20.81% (358,819 to 284,165) respectively.

Not all of the domestic airlines returned to the airport after it reopened last March, following extensive repairs due to flood damage. if all domestic air services to Bangkok were channeled through the airport it would have slightly more than 900,000 passengers a month instead of slightly less than 300,000.

This is likely to change if Thai AirAsia succeeds in convincing AoT to allow it to take over an entire terminal No 2) and transfer all of its operations to Don Mueang. The airline is haggling over costs, but it is likely that AoT will concede that Thai AirAsia has the clout to turn around the fortunes of the former international airport.

In the south, Hat Yai Airport, made gains in aircraft movements and passenger traffic; up 0.76%, from 1,058 to 1,066 and 9.74% from 143,205 to 157,160.

Chiang Rai Airport, a domestic airport, reported an improvement of aircraft movements of 8.40% from 500 to 542 movements and an increase in passenger traffic of 26.50% from 57,692 to 72,980 when compared to the same month last year.