Chiang Mai and the pandemic: It'll be twenty years before there's a new airport

 

Picture: Chiang Mai News

 

Gung-ho plans and a 20 billion baht budget to build a new airport or "Chiang Mai 2" in the northern Thai city are now on hold. 

 

In fact a report from Chiang Mai News suggests that it will be twenty years before the project becomes a reality.

 

The downturn in the economy and tourism and the devastating effect on air travel means that 20 billion baht plans that looked like bringing a new airport to the city well within this decade are now just a pipe dream. 

 

All forecasts are now being revised and the best that the airport might expect is some refurbishments.

 

Picture: Chiang Mai News

 

A business forecast suggested that the earliest building might begin would be around 2035 and that it would be the end of the next decade before the city had a new terminal. 

 

They also said that the Thai transport ministry was readjusting proposals for airport improvement in Phuket as well as Chiang Mai in light of the pandemic. 

 

CMN said in their headline that plans for the new airport in the north had faded away. 

 

Source: Chiang Mai News

 

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6 minutes ago, webfact said:

All forecasts are now being revised and the best that the airport might expect is some refurbishments.

I was hoping the best would be a few flights to/from other countries.

So Chiang Mai doesn't expect tourist numbers to recover for 20 years ..... worse than even I thought.

hahaha - that's a very poorly photoshopped image. The plane is about to land on the Chiang Mai to MaeOn/Ban Thi road near Sankhampaeng, which is a long way from the current airport, but a proposed site for the new airport. At least the pilot has missed the signpost and street lights ????

2 hours ago, Phuketshrew said:

hahaha - that's a very poorly photoshopped image. The plane is about to land on the Chiang Mai to MaeOn/Ban Thi road near Sankhampaeng, which is a long way from the current airport, but a proposed site for the new airport. At least the pilot has missed the signpost and street lights ????

My thoughts as well - it must be a "light" aircraft!

4 hours ago, BritManToo said:

I was hoping the best would be a few flights to/from other countries.

So Chiang Mai doesn't expect tourist numbers to recover for 20 years ..... worse than even I thought.

Chiang Mai has more serious issues to sort out other than Covid keeping tourists away, smoke being just one of them.

41 minutes ago, hotchilli said:

Chiang Mai has more serious issues to sort out other than Covid keeping tourists away, smoke being just one of them.

What are the serious issues you are referring to? Specifically that are keeping tourists away?

 

Before the local and international covid panic tourist numbers in Chiang Mai were going up each year, as far as I am aware.

 

As for the 'smoke', I've lived here in Chiang Mai with the annual two to three months of excessive air pollution for 30 years and while I abhor that it happens, like most everyone else here have learned how to cope with it without any serious disruption to my health or lifestyle. But thanks for your concern. By the way there are 34 provinces in the north, north-east and parts of central Thailand affected by air pollution and some more severely and for longer periods than Chiang Mai.

 

As for the topic in the OP, many Chiang Mai people won't shed a tear that the second airport will be delayed. That does not include those speculators who have snapped up land around the proposed site of the airport however. That land grab began seriously around 2000 as I recall.

Yeah pollution has nothing to do with the tourists. What made a change of things was not long after the coup started enforcing midnight curfews on CM and at the same time more and more Chinese. As well that the baht became stronger and everything else more expensive.

Guess the only future for CM is loads of annoying Chinese tourists anyway. Will never be like it used to be before 2014. Same time we should not underestimate how fast tourism could be back up quite a bit if they made some deal with China out of nowhere as it is a near by destination.

Oh and to the airport thing, why they not use their time properly renewing the airport now it is quiet??? TIT. I tell you now, they will start doing big renovations during the first coming high season with tourists lol.

13 hours ago, BritManToo said:

I was hoping the best would be a few flights to/from other countries.

So Chiang Mai doesn't expect tourist numbers to recover for 20 years ..... worse than even I thought.

There will hopefully always be T-bar...Teerak! ❤️

12 hours ago, Phuketshrew said:

hahaha - that's a very poorly photoshopped image. The plane is about to land on the Chiang Mai to MaeOn/Ban Thi road near Sankhampaeng, which is a long way from the current airport, but a proposed site for the new airport. At least the pilot has missed the signpost and street lights ????

Coming this fall to a Central Plaza Theater!   AIRPORT 2020!-The Pandemic days   rated pg-13 (popcorn 200bt) VIP seating limited...theater may have roped off area for dirty infected farang aka bubble zone

They are doing renovations already. New multi level garage for long term parking, moved motorcycle parking to far end snd still in process of revamping the area. That right there is a major change. 

On 10/5/2020 at 12:22 PM, Antonymous said:

As for the 'smoke', I've lived here in Chiang Mai with the annual two to three months of excessive air pollution for 30 years and while I abhor that it happens, like most everyone else here have learned how to cope with it without any serious disruption to my health or lifestyle.

You have no possible way of knowing how many PM 2.5 particles have infiltrated your brain and other organs. You have no idea what the cumulative, long-term effects upon your health might be.

All we know is that Northern Thailand has one of the highest levels of lung cancer in the world, and today's cases would mainly be based on pollution from decades ago. Today's far higher levels are an unprecedented experiment on humans.

 

At this rate, they will have no need for a new airport.????

1 hour ago, donnacha said:

1>You have no possible way of knowing how many PM 2.5 particles have infiltrated your brain and other organs. You have no idea what the cumulative, long-term effects upon your health might be.

All we know is that Northern Thailand has one of the highest levels of lung cancer in the world, and today's cases would mainly be based on pollution from decades ago. Today's far higher levels are an unprecedented experiment on humans.

1> True, but if the pollution levels are high for only a few months a year, it's possible some of the damage can be undone (by a less over-burdened immune system in the low-pollution months).

 

2> It's not smoking + (in villages) smoke from cooking fires?

1 hour ago, onebir said:

1> True, but if the pollution levels are high for only a few months a year, it's possible some of the damage can be undone (by a less over-burdened immune system in the low-pollution months).

A strong immune system rarely hurts but, unfortunately, this is not an immunity-related problem. Humans did not evolve in situations where such large amounts of these particles penetrated deep into their bodies over prolonged periods and the body has no mechanism to expel them.

Also, the few months you are referring to are just the visually dramatic burning season but, actually, the invisible pollution is far above any safety standards for the entire first half of the year. Not great during the second half, either, but few places in Asia are.
 

 

1 hour ago, onebir said:

2> It's not smoking + (in villages) smoke from cooking fires?

Smoke from cooking fires is bad but mostly outdoors and not a big problem in sparsely populated villages. It all contributes, of course, but that stuff would be manageable if the mass burning for mushrooms could be eliminated.

 

On 10/6/2020 at 12:19 AM, ChaiyaTH said:

Yeah pollution has nothing to do with the tourists. What made a change of things was not long after the coup started enforcing midnight curfews on CM and at the same time more and more Chinese. As well that the baht became stronger and everything else more expensive.

Guess the only future for CM is loads of annoying Chinese tourists anyway. Will never be like it used to be before 2014. Same time we should not underestimate how fast tourism could be back up quite a bit if they made some deal with China out of nowhere as it is a near by destination.

Oh and to the airport thing, why they not use their time properly renewing the airport now it is quiet??? TIT. I tell you now, they will start doing big renovations during the first coming high season with tourists lol.

Take your blinkers off.  The coup had little to do with tourist arrivals.  Twas a mere blip.  Global financial woes lead to the gradual decline in US, EU,  Aus and others staying at home.  Chinese tours partially filled the vacuum and investment by Cn nationals increased as they sought safe havens for their future.  The BRI initative and proximity to home made Thailand an obvious choice as other countries wised up and closed their doors.

 

This government is the best Thailand has had in many decades despite some of the ministers being anti farang.  Mind you, if they read TV it's probably no surprise .... lol

47 minutes ago, McTavish said:

 

This government is the best Thailand has had in many decades

Do tell..........and why? ????

 

Not for myself mind but, I'm sure the Thais will hang on every word.

8 hours ago, donnacha said:

You have no possible way of knowing how many PM 2.5 particles have infiltrated your brain and other organs. You have no idea what the cumulative, long-term effects upon your health might be.

All we know is that Northern Thailand has one of the highest levels of lung cancer in the world, and today's cases would mainly be based on pollution from decades ago. Today's far higher levels are an unprecedented experiment on humans.

 

 

I have had brain and lung scans recently and am assured that I have no health problems there at all – after living in Chiang Mai for 30 years. I do not smoke. I use air filters in my home for those parts of the days during the two months that PM2.5 rises above 50 and I wear an N95 mask when outdoors at those times. Small sacrifices to make to continue living in this paradise. I’m also fortunate enough to be able to take holidays away from the north of Thailand during that time.

 

You make the bold claim that “Northern Thailand has one of the world's highest rates of lung cancer” but you have not provided evidence on which you base your statement, or any evidence that lung cancer in the north of Thailand is directly correlated to air pollution.

 

You appear to be trolling. I have asked you in another thread recently to please link to the study or studies that support your claims, but you have failed to do so.

 

Here is the actual data. Thailand doesn’t even make it into the top 25. Hungary had the highest rate of lung cancer in 2018, followed by Serbia.

 

Lung cancer rates: both sexes

Rank	Country	Age-standardised rate per 100,000
1	Hungary	56.7
2	Serbia	49.8
3	New Caledonia (France)	42.3
4	Greece	40.5
5	French Polynesia	39.8
6	Montenegro	39.7
7	Belgium	39.0
8	Guam	37.9
9	Turkey	36.9
10	Denmark	36.6
11	Poland	36.5
12	North Korea	36.2
13=	Bosnia & Herzegovina	36.1
13=	France (metropolitan)	36.1
15	Samoa	35.4
16=	China	35.1
16=	US	35.1
18	Macedonia	34.1
19=	Germany	33.7
19=	Ireland	33.7
21	Netherlands	33.3
22	Slovenia	32.9
23	Croatia	32.5
24	UK	32.5
25	Slovakia	31.2

 

Sources:

https://www.wcrf.org/dietandcancer/cancer-trends/lung-cancer-statistics and https://canceratlas.cancer.org/the-burden/lung-cancer/

 

As for your claim that air pollution is the cause of lung cancer here, you need to look a lot deeper into the actual research.

 

“A considerable number of studies on air pollution monitoring in the northern region of Thailand found that Chiang Mai was not the area with the highest air pollution level in this region, thus it seems that this might not be the only factor in the risk of death from lung cancer.”

 

Source: https://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12889-018-6025-1

 

The study found other factors at work. For example:

 

“The analysis of the risk of lung cancer mortality by gender revealed that females were at a higher risk of lung cancer mortality than males, especially in districts within Chiang Rai province. This might have been due to the effect of the chewing of Miang (fermented wild tea leaves) and tobacco smoking in that the habit of females pursuing this pastime is higher than males.”

 

And then there’s this:

 

“In Thailand, the prevalence of smoking as of August 2017 is 20.7% of the total adult population over the age of 15. This further breaks down as 40.5% of the adult male population that smokes, while the female population usage rate is only 2.2%. In other words, men in Thailand smoke at a rate that is about 20 times that of women! Similarly, boys aged 13-15 in Thailand use tobacco products at a rate of 21.8%, while girls do at a rate of 8.1%. These are worrying figures, indeed.

 

Looking at the portion of Thai society that smokes likely makes one wonder about how this affects tobacco related disease, and for the purposes of this article, lung cancer specifically. Well, the significance of smoking’s impact may surprise you. Figures state that 106,000 people die from smoking-related disease every year in Thailand, which accounts for almost 24% of male deaths, and 10% of female deaths, according to the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington. Clearly, smoking is not a risk factor to be taken lightly.

 

Even people that don’t smoke have to worry about their lung health, as 30.5% of workers in Thailand are exposed to secondhand smoke while working, many of them working in food service or public transportation.”

 

The research above was quoted by Pacific Prime and published in https://inspirebangkok.com/bangkok/smoking-lung-cancer-thailand/

 

 

1 hour ago, UncleMhee said:

Do tell..........and why? ????

 

Not for myself mind but, I'm sure the Thais will hang on every word.

hahaha ... Thai's, especially the majority, those in rural areas, don't give a rats ass for politics.  Bangkok is merely a source of income and mainly from family working there.

 

K. Prayuth saved Th from a Thaksin backed redshirt revolution, tamed most red dissenters and rooted out mr T's rural network of corrupt officials.  Since then it's been a hard road to hoe due to the World economy yet the Government has clamped down on a raft of major corruption practices most notably in land titles and Govt services.

 

But this is a thread about the proposed 2nd airport and I for one am quite happy to see that project shelved whilst renovation and extension of the existing facility is already well underway. 

3 hours ago, McTavish said:

hahaha ... Thai's, especially the majority, those in rural areas, don't give a rats ass for politics.  Bangkok is merely a source of income and mainly from family working there.

 

K. Prayuth saved Th from a Thaksin backed redshirt revolution, tamed most red dissenters and rooted out mr T's rural network of corrupt officials.  Since then it's been a hard road to hoe due to the World economy yet the Government has clamped down on a raft of major corruption practices most notably in land titles and Govt services.

 

But this is a thread about the proposed 2nd airport and I for one am quite happy to see that project shelved whilst renovation and extension of the existing facility is already well underway. 

I wonder just how much of the land in the know speculators bought and are now wishing they had not.

No gov officials of course!????

23 hours ago, holy cow cm said:

They are doing renovations already. New multi level garage for long term parking, moved motorcycle parking to far end snd still in process of revamping the area. That right there is a major change. 

That is the most important stuff, more gates and facilities. They should move parking offsite. They have plenty of runway time available.