I was surprised when I flew down from Phits last Monday (26th Jan) on the afternoon flight at the number of people that were waiting for taxis. The place was packed! It took 45 minutes to get a taxi and the queues were moving pretty fast. I put that down to the time of day.

Travelling back to Phits on Friday (30th Jan) on the last flight (19:45, actually departed at 20:30) I can honestly say that it has been more than a decade since I have seen numbers of travelers like there were there. Busy outside but nothing to what it was on the other side of security. Hardly a seat to be had in the 30's flight gate wing or the 70's wing (not sure about the 40's one) with most of the seats in the main concourse occupied.

forget about Mac D's, Burger King or Subway, queues outside them all. Seriously, reading about the low numbers of tourists in Thailand at the moment, you certainly wouldn't have thought that last Friday. Obviously not all travelers were tourists, but there was a good percentage of them that were.

Are times changing or what?

Just to add to the above, I make about 30 return flight a year through the airport so I would consider myself a frequent flier.

It was heaving a couple of weeks back and we had to follow a car park attendant to an 'unused' car park 800 m from the airport building.

They are also extensively refurbishing one of the old terminal buildings.

I was there last weekend and it was packed.

Long queue for Taxis so I got the Shuttle Bus to Morchit and then the BTS into town.

Same coming back.

Glad I did as it was much cheaper and quicker.