BANGKOK, 27 June 2014 – The Airports of Thailand (AoT) managing director estimates that the number of passengers and flights in the fiscal year 2014 is likely to increase about 4.2% while reaffirming plans to speed up the second development phase of Suvarnabhumi International Airport as already planned.
The Airports of Thailand (AoT) managing director Mekhin Phretphlai revealed that the global aviation industry has seen a continuous growth in the number of passengers by approximately 4.5-5%. The growth in the Asia Pacific is 6.5% while Thailand is estimated to gain 2-3% growth. The number of passengers using the six airports under AoT management during the period October 2013 – May 2014 was 60,342,046 people, which was an increase of 4.2%. Of that number, 24,584,953 people were domestic passengers while the other 35,757,093 were international passengers, which was lower by 1.84% due to the political situation. The total number of flights increased to 419,363. Furthermore, it is believed that the number of passengers will rise in 2015 due to the start of the AEC and will edge up to 100 million people in 2016.
Following the estimated higher number of passengers, AoT has to increase the airports’ capacity to meet the demand. The AoT has proposed details of strategies and key projects to the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO) for approval. One of them is the second phase of Suvarnabhumi airport development which was initially planned to start near the end of this year with a timeline of 58 months for construction. Meanwhile, AoT is operating as normal.
