Strain on Thailand Airports Due to Booming Tourism – Plans to Increase Capacity in the Future

In a recent report, well known business news portal, Bloomberg highlighted the fact that the increase in arrivals to Thailand due to the tourist boom was putting a strain on local airports. According to the report, President of the state-run Airports of Thailand PCL, Nitinai Sirismatthakarn, stated that plans are already underway to expand the passenger capacity at airports in the country. Thailand is a well-known tourist hotspot in the Asian region amongst domestic and international travellers with accommodation choices including everything from a hotel in Bangkok or villa in Phuket to a Hua Hin beach resort such as the popular Anantara Hua Hin Resort. The Thai government is planning to increase the capacity of the city’s main Suvarnabhumi Airport to accommodate 90 million passengers by 2022 and 40 million passengers at the Don Mueang International Airport. This will be considered as a major increase from the present combined capacity of 75 million at these airports. The state-run airports of Thailand also feature four other airports including one in Phuket.