Nakhon Ratchasima Airport Draws Interest of Thai Lion Air
BY JACOB MASLOW

KORAT: -- Thai Lion Air (TLA), a budget carrier in Thailand, has shown interest in the Nakhon Ratchasima airport. The company is currently discussing regular flights going through the airport with hopes of connecting northeastern provinces with Phuket, Chiang Mai and Hat Yai. There have also been rumors that the company wants to connect with Bangkok from the airport.

The airport has routinely struggled to draw interest from major airlines, and currently operates with most of its flights being small charter flights or training flights.

Nakhon Ratchasima has not had regularly scheduled flights since June of this year. Kan Air operator flies at the airport between February and June.

Full story: http://ethailand.com/business-news/nakhon-ratchasima-airport-draws-interest-of-thai-lion-air/420/

-- eThailand 2015-11-25

There have also been rumors that the company wants to connect with Bangkok from the airport.

As rumour it makes sense

Korat - Don Mueang: ~190 km / 120 mi straight line.

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Korat Don Mueang, may only be 190 km, but twice it has taken me almost five hours to drive this distance, and I seldom make the trip. I could see a flight would be very nice, or perhaps a reliable comfortable train, that would not be affected by traffic.

Korat Don Mueang, may only be 190 km, but twice it has taken me almost five hours to drive this distance, and I seldom make the trip. I could see a flight would be very nice, or perhaps a reliable comfortable train, that would not be affected by traffic.

Other small Airlines have tried this and have failed in the past.

If it would be profitable, be sure NOK had already started such flights, using their smaller Turboprop Aircraft.

In addition, Korat Airport is far from town, so it already takes some time to get there, plus check-in procedure a.s.o. there is no time saved flying compared to on the road. A different case is if you have connecting flights, but there are very few connectiong flights from DMK, so this doesn't make sense either.

THAI LION had started some extraordinarily strange routes in the past.

I had a good laugh when they started Hat Yai - Medan, as there is no demand from both destinations.

As expected it stopped after 6 months or so. People told me, sometimes they had less than 10 PAX on their 72-seaters.

The management of this Airline (both their HQ in Indonesia as well as the Thai operations) is lacking any common sense

I have flown 6 Thai Lion flights in the last 3 weeks and all were full (Ubon>BKK & BKK > Krabi. & BKK>CM) Planes seemed new but in line with many budget airlines they try to get extra money for overweight luggage. (15k & 7k hand luggage) Prices were silly cheap too

At 120miles to DMK I would suggest thats on the hairy edge of being worth it. Even flying from KKC to DMK you are only in the air for ~40-45mins. I know driving on the highway from Bangkok can be nightmarish, but even at it's worst the travel time difference would probably be marginal.

It's hard for me to see that being worthwhile. Flights from Korat to Phuket etc, well thats a different story.