I remember when Suvarnabhumi was built the government didn't know what to do with Don Mueang. Some thought it should be used for rice storage. Now it is bursting at the seams with travelers and the government wants the expansion of Suvarnabhumi expedited. But I keep hearing tourism is down. What's the explanation? Many more Thais traveling?

According to the TV tourism analysts tourism has been going down for the last 1000 years but you look at flight stats website and there is a mind blowing amount of planes coming in. 

Air travel growth seems unstoppable.

And domestic has it's share.

When I first came to Thailand there were three flights daily to Khon Kaen with Thai Airways.

Price was about 2500 Baht in the mid 90s(!).

Nowadays it's six flights from BKK plus eleven flights from DMK with prices down to below 1000 Baht (in 2019!).

And that's just one provincial airport.

More and more Thai people can afford to fly and avoid the terrible bus trips.

 

Edited July 23, 20196 yr by KhunBENQ

2 hours ago, elgenon said:

nd the government wants the expansion of Suvarnabhumi expedited.

they are building a fourth airport.

I have a feeling that all this building is just a means to ‘rip-off’ the government for more money. Same with all the new buildings in the university’s. Student numbers down but that doesn’t stop making the Uni’s bigger.
Like I say, just my take on it!


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22 hours ago, KhunBENQ said:

Air travel growth seems unstoppable.

And domestic has it's share.

When I first came to Thailand there were three flights daily to Khon Kaen with Thai Airways.

Price was about 2500 Baht in the mid 90s(!).

Nowadays it's six flights from BKK plus eleven flights from DMK with prices down to below 1000 Baht (in 2019!).

And that's just one provincial airport.

More and more Thai people can afford to fly and avoid the terrible bus trips.

 

Most of the domestic flights are from DM. What's up with Suvarnabhumi? Let's ask Andrew Wiggens.

Most of the domestic flights are from DM. What's up with Suvarnabhumi? Let's ask Andrew Wiggens.

I thought ‘Swampy’ was for international carriers only.


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And DMK is not domestic only

More like the low cost carrier hub.

 

48 minutes ago, tomazbodner said:

you have Bangkok Air, Thai Air and Thai Smile flying domestic from Swampy

And Thai Vietjet.

Edited July 24, 20196 yr by KhunBENQ

No, you have Bangkok Air, Thai Air and Thai Smile flying domestic from Swampy. Why else would they have Domestic Departures/Arrivals at the beginning of the airport?

Yes true, but those domestic lines are all part of an International company, unlike NOK Air, for instance.

I have flown to both, on domestic routes from Ubon many times.

 

 

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17 hours ago, DILLIGAD said:

I thought ‘Swampy’ was for international carriers only.


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I think a couple Thai carriers like Bangkok Air and Thai Air fly domestically.

6 hours ago, DILLIGAD said:

Yes true, but those domestic lines are all part of an International company, unlike NOK Air, for instance.

I have flown to both, on domestic routes from Ubon many times.

 

 

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Air Asia flies to other countries but is only in DM. DM does have international departure gates.

Maybe the domestic ones at Suvarnabhumi are owned by Thai companies?

Media reports this week that another airport is planned to the West side of Bangkok. A 2nd terminal at Swampy is also in the pipeline.

By the time they'd finished haggling on who got what part of the construction & equipping cake and completed Suvarnabhumi it was a twenty year old design and already close to capacity. Soft spots on the tarmac, taxiways, and apron didn't help matters. That's why Don Muaeung was reinstated and the low cost carriers offloaded to the old airport. Thirteen years on, the airport is handling over 60m passengers per annum, though was designed for 45m. The original design included a series of expansion phases, both increasing the number of terminals and adding two more runways, to bring the capacity to 100m. These are the expansions that they now want expedited. Which brings us back to my first sentence.

 

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Edited July 25, 20196 yr by Stocky

4 minutes ago, Stocky said:

By the time they'd finished haggling on who got what part of the construction & equipping cake and completed Suvarnabhumi it was a twenty year old design and already close to capacity. Soft spots on the tarmac, taxiways, and apron didn't help matters. That's why Don Muaeung was reinstated and the low cost carriers offloaded to the old airport. Thirteen years on, the airport is handling over 60m passengers per annum, though was designed for 45m. The original design included a series of expansion phases, both increasing the number of terminals and adding two more runways, to bring the capacity to 100m. These are the expansions that they now want expedited. Which brings us back to my first sentence.

 

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Yes, problems from being built on a swamp. Was blamed on foreign engineers. My original question was why all the airport expansion when we hear tourism is down.

What you hear and what you read (on here and elsewhere) should be taken in context with who is providing the information and why a negative (or positive) slant is beneficial and why. IMO the translation of Thai to English seems to allow a lot of literary licence, enabling the distortion of facts in the favor of those manipulating the truth.  

1 hour ago, elgenon said:

My original question was why all the airport expansion when we hear tourism is down.

As I said it's running at overcapacity, that's reflected in problems from the poor air-conditioning to queues at immigration. But it's not only foreign tourists that use the airport, Thais are increasingly using the airport, both for domestic and foreign travel.

The design contract for Swampy was awarded in 1994. Design Development finished in 1998. It opened in 2005...

 

I think the design competition was around 1990. 

 

Things can can take a VERY LONG TIME here.