Don Mueang reopens March

BANGKOK, 30 January 2012: Airports of Thailand discounts fees for airlines and business operators at Don Mueang Airport in a move to restore operations after floods closed the airport since 26 October.

Relief measures, approved by the AoT board, will cost the company around Bt110 million in revenue, 25 October 2011 to 25 March this year.

Nok Air and Orient Thai Airlines moved to Suvarnabhumi Airport and pay standard parking and landing fees to Suvarnabhumi Airport.

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AoT reports positive turnover

BANGKOK, 25 January 2012: December delivered a slight improvement in passengers and aircraft traffic for  the Airports of Thailand, which manages six airports in the country.

Airports performed ahead of  benchmarks, passenger and aircraft movements, improving just below 14% for the entire year, but growth rates were shaved considerably in December, possibly due to inclement weather in the South and the aftermath of floods in the central plains.

Aircraft movements in December improved by 6.05% from 37,721 to 40,005, while passenger growth was marginal at 1.68%, up from 5,824,546 to 5,922,563. Read more

Smog slows Beijing flights

BEIJING, 10 January, 2012: More than 150 flights to and from Beijing were cancelled or delayed Tuesday as a thick cloud of acrid smog shrouded the city, with US figures saying the pollution was so bad it was off the scale.

The national meteorological centre said the Chinese capital had been hit by thick fog that reduced visibility to as little as 200 metres (650 feet) in some parts of the city, while official data judged air quality to be “good”.

But the US embassy, which has its own pollution measuring system, said on its Twitter feed that the concentration of the smallest, most dangerous particles in the air was “beyond index” for most of the morning.

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Bag thief caught red handed

DHAKA, 6 January 2012: Bangladeshi police have arrested the alleged mastermind of a suitcase-stealing ring at Dhaka airport and recovered tens of thousands of dollars worth of goods, a senior officer said earlier this week.

Joynal Abedin was caught red-handed by police as he tried to carry a large flat-screen television out of Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport on Monday, airport police chief M Shamsuddin said.

“We carried out raids all last night based on his information. We have seized more than 1,000 goods including blankets, televisions, bags, shoes, cosmetics, pressure cookers,” he told AFP. Read more

Tourists flee New Year flood

SONGKHLA, 5 January 2012: Songkhla tourism will suffer a Bt50 million drop in revenue following floods that hit southern Thailand late last week.

According to the Hai Yai-Songkhla Hotel Association, floods wiped out New Year celebrations at the popular southern town that is usually packed with Malaysian and Singaporean tourists. Heavy rains and subsequent floods forced tourists to cancel their plans to visit Songkhla province.

Most tourism-related reservations were cancelled by New Year’s Eve, while tourists who had checked in at hotels cut their holiday short. It scuttled the province’s main source of revenue during what is a very short peak season. Officials estimated a Bt50 million loss in revenue for tourism related enterprises. Read more

French airports face strikes

PARIS, 23 December 2011: French aviation workers’ unions said Thursday they would strike between 6 to 9 February to protest a government bill aiming to make it more difficult for the sector to take industrial action.

“All trades are united in this call: pilots, navigators, mechanics and ground staff,” Yves Deshayes of the main SNPL pilots’ union told AFP.

The French parliament will on 24 January debate the bill put forward by Eric Diard from President Nicolas Sarkozy’s right-wing UMP party to legislate air strikes. Read more

AoT airports suffer declines

BANGKOK, 22 December 2011: Most of Thailand’s airports showed a performance decline in November, according to the Airports of Thailand’s latest data.

AoT manages six airports in the country, but one of them, Don Mueang Airport, was closed in November due to heavy flooding in Bangkok’s northern suburbs.

The drop in both passenger and aircraft movements was blamed on floods in Thailand’s central provinces.

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AirAsia’s chief slams airport authority

KUALA LUMPUR, 6 December 2011 : AirAsia boss Tony Fernandes has slammed Malaysian airport authorities after they announced costs for a new low-cost carrier terminal would double and it would be delayed by more than a year.

The maverick head of the budget airline said in a Twitter post seen mid-last week that Malaysia Airports Holdings was the “worst-run Malaysian company.”

Malaysia Airports said in a press release that the new terminal near the Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) and known as klia2 will be “the world’s largest purpose-built terminal for low-cost carriers”. Read more

Take off minus bye bye

BEIJING, 2 December 2011: A Chinese airline pledged Wednesday to improve its crews’ English skills after one of its flights took off from a Japanese airport without authorisation.

China Eastern Airlines did not say what caused the error, but pledged to “further improve English communication skills of our flight crews to assure flight safety,” suggesting it may have been a misunderstanding.

The airline also said it was cooperating with an investigation by Japanese authorities into Monday’s incident, in which its pilot took off from Osaka airport without clearance from air traffic controllers. Read more

AoT maps out Don Mueang rehab plan

BANGKOK, 28 November 2011: Airports of Thailand outlined a Bt1 billion rehabilitation plan for  flooded Don Mueang Airport, late last week.

According to the plan, the airport could be ready for commercial services within 60 days after the airport dries out, but a wider plan to make it more secure against flood threats will take much longer.

Airports of Thailand president, Anirut Thanomkulbutra, said at a press conference, Friday, that rehabilitation was divided into two phrases — to restore to pre-flood condition and to develop a sustainable flood prevention plan for the future.

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