Thailand: Congestion suffocating Thai airports

The combined capacity of airports under Airports of Thailand's supervision has fallen well short of actual utilisation, resulting in congestion, according to AoT data. The data showed that while the six AoT-operated airports have a combined capacity to handle 96.6m passengers a year, a total of 120m passengers were processed in the fiscal year to Sept 30, 2016, 24.3% over. All but one AoT airport is being run well beyond the designed capacity for passenger handling. Chiang Rai airport is the only exception, even though passenger traffic through the facility has been on the rise, fuelled by holiday travel. Airport with the most critical shortfalls in passenger handling capacities were, from highest to lowest, Suvarnabhumi, Phuket and Don Mueang. With a 45m-passenger-year designed capacity, Suvarnabhumi, Thailand's main gateway, processed 55.5m in the 2016 fiscal year. Congestion will only worsen over the years to come as AoT continues to squeeze increasing numbers of passengers and flights into the crowded<br/>facilities, while not moving fast enough to add new airport capacities. The IATA has recently called on Thai authorities to expedite airport upgrades, especially Suvarnabhumi, to make sure they are able to cope with the soaring number of air travellers over the next 20 years.<br/>