The operator of six Thai airports including Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi and Don Mueang said today it wants to shut down two lesser-used airports to cut losses.
Both the Hat Yai and Chiang Rai international airports will be shuttered in the next few years to save costs with no plans to replace them, Nitinai Sirismatthakarn, president of Airports of Thailand, or AOT, said today. Nittinai said Hat Yai’s traffic would be absorbed by Phuket.
“In about 5 to 6 years, AOT plans to close Hat Yai Airport and make visitors use the Phuket airports instead. Because right now, AOT is already planning to build a second airport in Phuket,” Nitinai said, according to Khaosod.
Update: Plans to shutter Hat Yai and Chiang Rai airports shot down
He said there’s been a roughly 5.6% decrease in passengers flying in and out of Hat Yai (HDY), with the number of flights falling by 7.4%.
“Hat Yai is not a transit hub, it only attracts business travelers or some tourists. It’s inconvenient because those who travel to Hat Yai, cannot transit to other destinations,” he said, explaining why fewer tourists to the south are coming to the city.
He said the facility may be kept for some other commercial use, such as an airplane hangar and storage facility. Phuket’s second airport is currently under construction in Phang Nga and is meant to accommodate more than 5.5 million passengers annually.
Nitinai did not mention how the closure of Chiang Rai’s airport, formally known as the Mae Fah Luang-Chiang Rai Airport (CIE), would be accommodated. Like Hat Yai, it’s not a transit hub and services one of the least developed areas of Thailand. Nitinai said it too has been seeing fewer passengers.
More than 4.3 million passengers passed through Hat Yai’s airport two years ago. In 2018, Chiang Rai saw 2.9 million passengers, a significant increase from just the year before. In 2014, AOT announced it would expand the airport after it saw 1 million passengers the year prior.
The decision to close the two airport came from the fact that fewer visitors have been using such “gateway” airports in favor of “transportation hubs” such as Suvarnabhumi, Phuket or Chiang Mai, where passengers can change to ongoing flights to other parts of the world.
Nitinai said the downward trend is only expected to continue at the two airports.
He did not say the plan was final and gave no date for their potential closure.
Created in 2002, AOT grew quickly as a public company and last year was named the world’s most valuable airport operator with market capitalization of over THB1 trillion (US$33.1 billion), according to Bloomberg. Shares were trading up slightly today at 76.75.
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