Thailand Presses On With Provincial Airport Developments Despite Having Low Or No Commercial Air Traffic

[webfact]

 

Boonsong Kosit

 

Thai authorities remain keen to upgrade and expand state-owned provincial airports and even build new ones, even though many existing ones are barely utilised or are ‘ghost airports.’

 

The Department of Airports (DOA), the agency under the Ministry of Transport in charge of Thailand’s small airports, has shown no sign of delaying, scaling down or scraping its airport development schemes that are costing 27.25 billion baht (US$826 million) between 2018 and 2022.

 

The government budget earmarked, in the five-year period, improvements to 17 airports owned and operated by the DOA including those in the southern province of Krabi and the northeast provinces of Udon Thani and Buriram.

 

Full story: http://www.smartaviation-apac.com/2022/01/thailand-presses-on-with-provincial-airport-developments-despite-having-low-or-no-commercial-air-traffic/

 

-- © Copyright Smart Aviation 2022-01-05

 

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[RichardColeman]

4 minutes ago, webfact said:

Thai authorities remain keen to upgrade and expand state-owned provincial airports and even build new ones, even though many existing ones are barely utilised or are ‘ghost airports.’

Not even Kevin Costner would risk ripping up his field to do this.

[Willy Wombat]

Someone in the provinces is holding on to soon to be very expensive land. 

[Soikhaonoiken]

Priorities...... Oh I forgot, Thailand hasn't got any,  but they allow 3 million to be come unemployed. 

Nuf said... 

[kotsak]

Pockets are waiting to be lined up..

[tjo o tjim]

You do upgrades like this when air travel is down… it will pick up again eventually.  I’m sure there are plenty of reasons to be cynical on the projects, but doing so based on today’s traffic is just silly.

[NicholasTH]

Are these types of headlines are just distractions from Covid and other mishandling ..

[hotchilli]

4 hours ago, webfact said:

Thai authorities remain keen to upgrade and expand state-owned provincial airports and even build new ones, even though many existing ones are barely utilised or are ‘ghost airports.’

Got to keep civil servants in the lap of luxury.. no cut-backs.

[unblocktheplanet]

So easy to spend our money!

[superal]

The D.O.A. , in my opinion need to review their plans . The hub of most provincial and international flights is Bangkok . I understand the logic for international flights but not for provincial . Today , planners would seek to place the hub for provincial flights somewhere more central , thus enabling shorter journeys and more economical aircraft .  As it stands , many provincial flights have to fly to Bangkok and  then change to the final destination .

BTW I did not read any mention in the report about the Buriram airport  development nor its profits or losses. 

[Adumbration]

Travel by air is sooo 2020...

[mtls2005]

Maybe build a futsal court first.

 

Baby steps.

[Enoon]

This one not mentioned on the list, although I believe it is never used:

 

 

Anyone know different?

 

 

Edited January 5, 2022 by Enoon

[Mr Meeseeks]

Those brown envelopes won't fill themselves. 

[ArcticFox]

Universal optimists!

[ArcticFox]

Brother-in-law effect.

Someone owns a large tract of land in the sticks.  Brother-in-law who is a regional puuyai lobbies for an airport on that particular location.
Cha-ching!  "Come on Big Money!"

[mtls2005]

52 minutes ago, Enoon said:

Anyone know different?

I think New Gen served this airport?

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NjKGT8zC0os

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gr9Az-_gBAQ

 

[khunjeff]

1 hour ago, Enoon said:

This one not mentioned on the list, although I believe it is never used:

 

 

Anyone know different?

From the article:

 

"A good case in point is DOA’s Nakhon Ratchasima Airport, which cost two billion baht and opened in 1997. 

 

Over time, airlines like Thai Airways International, Thai AirAsia and several now-defunct carriers such as Air Andaman, Happy Air, Thai Regional Airline, Kan Air and NexGen Airways tried serving Nakhon Ratchasima Airport but found it unviable."

[mtls2005]

13 minutes ago, khunjeff said:

Airways tried serving Nakhon Ratchasima Airport but found it unviable."

It's in the middle of nowhere, they didn't allow livestock, and it's barely a 4 hour drive.

 

 

[zzaa09]

Part and parcel of the continued illusion.

[Enoon]

23 hours ago, khunjeff said:

From the article:

 

"A good case in point is DOA’s Nakhon Ratchasima Airport, which cost two billion baht and opened in 1997. 

 

Over time, airlines like Thai Airways International, Thai AirAsia and several now-defunct carriers such as Air Andaman, Happy Air, Thai Regional Airline, Kan Air and NexGen Airways tried serving Nakhon Ratchasima Airport but found it unviable."

Thanks.

 

Looked at the list, "skimmed" the article.

 

Thinking of my own, private use.........as a PPL holder.

 

 

[internationalism]

Minister of transport is from the mafia clan of chitchobs. They run bumjai party. 
his older brother, nevin, withdraw from bangkok politics some years ago after some high profile murders and runner to cambodia. 
They come from buriram. 
 

Edited January 6, 2022 by internationalism

[kimamey]

On 1/5/2022 at 3:53 AM, superal said:

The D.O.A. , in my opinion need to review their plans . The hub of most provincial and international flights is Bangkok . I understand the logic for international flights but not for provincial . Today , planners would seek to place the hub for provincial flights somewhere more central , thus enabling shorter journeys and more economical aircraft .  As it stands , many provincial flights have to fly to Bangkok and  then change to the final destination .

BTW I did not read any mention in the report about the Buriram airport  development nor its profits or losses. 

Yes I've noticed that. I'm in Mahasarakham so Khon Kaen is or usual airport although Roi Et is closer.  Khon Kaen has recently been rebuilt itself although I haven't seen it yet and I don't even know if it's finished. My only domestic flights are to Bangkok but yer have been times when a flight to Chiang Mai for example would be useful but it requires flying to Bangkok first so its two flights and stopover time.  The used to be Kan Air that flew direct but they've gone. 

[superal]

2 hours ago, kimamey said:

Yes I've noticed that. I'm in Mahasarakham so Khon Kaen is or usual airport although Roi Et is closer.  Khon Kaen has recently been rebuilt itself although I haven't seen it yet and I don't even know if it's finished. My only domestic flights are to Bangkok but yer have been times when a flight to Chiang Mai for example would be useful but it requires flying to Bangkok first so its two flights and stopover time.  The used to be Kan Air that flew direct but they've gone. 

Yes , I agree with the buggeration of waiting around for flights and sometimes road transport is more favourable with a door to door service .  I believe that there is a market for inter provincial air transport especially if using smaller turbo prop aircraft that are more economical and require shorter runways and thus open up smaller airports . Specific provincial flights need not operate every day , just maybe 2 or 3 times a week or whatever the demand suits .  Providing the aircraft are piloted by qualified pilots and not some tractor driver who fancied a go .

[zzaa09]

4 hours ago, internationalism said:

Minister of transport is from the mafia clan of chitchobs. They run bumjai party. 
his older brother, nevin, withdraw from bangkok politics some years ago after some high profile murders and runner to cambodia. 
They come from buriram. 
 

Ah, yes. Buriram. The new centre for all things corrupt. 

A passing phase.

[robblok]

On 1/5/2022 at 3:33 AM, RichardColeman said:

Not even Kevin Costner would risk ripping up his field to do this.

Im sure in an other thread you will accuse Thais of no forward planning if you can. But this is just forward planning, it probably wont stay this way. It might be less in future but that does not mean there wont be a need. 

[kimamey]

1 hour ago, superal said:

Yes , I agree with the buggeration of waiting around for flights and sometimes road transport is more favourable with a door to door service .  I believe that there is a market for inter provincial air transport especially if using smaller turbo prop aircraft that are more economical and require shorter runways and thus open up smaller airports . Specific provincial flights need not operate every day , just maybe 2 or 3 times a week or whatever the demand suits .  Providing the aircraft are piloted by qualified pilots and not some tractor driver who fancied a go .

I don't know how easy it would be to organise this but It might make things easier for passengers. Maybe a more central hub as you've suggested or 2 or 3 smaller hubs.  Using smaller planes would be a good idea and in the future it might be possible to use electric power. Kan Airways website is still up but still has had the same message for a few years. I don't know if any of the other parts of the business are still operating.

 

International flights use pilots trained to international standards and I assume domestic flights do the same. Imagine flying on a Thai Airways A380 with a pilot that had been tested by taxiing round some cones at the airport because it would be too dangerous to test them in the air. ????

[ChC1]

That being said, provincial airports can be served as a diversion airport. For example, if Bangkok suffered devastating accidents that both runways had to cease operation for a day or longer, inbound aircrafts can divert to nearby provincial airports instead of returning to origin countries (which can be 6 hours flying away in case of UAE). It rarely happens, but when emergency occurs, it helps. One of the best example I can think of is during 9-11, when USA shut its door for inbound traffic, all those aircrafts were due to land in USA was forced to land in some remote airports in Canada. Some of the Canadian airports have little commercial traffic but it kindly opened to all those aircrafts from Europe and USA. Before that day, how many passengers would fly to Gander Airport? I mean, how many of you posters here even heard of this airport? 

[RichardColeman]

58 minutes ago, robblok said:

Im sure in an other thread you will accuse Thais of no forward planning if you can. But this is just forward planning, it probably wont stay this way. It might be less in future but that does not mean there wont be a need. 

Actually. I am all for planning ahead,

 

But there is 'Reality' planning and 'Fantasy' planning.

[robblok]

Just now, RichardColeman said:

Actually. I am all for planning ahead,

 

But there is 'Reality' planning and 'Fantasy' planning.

You might be right, or not. I can't say. 

 

I think it depends a bit on what airports for some its a waste of money others maybe not.