Suvarnabhumi airport predicts Lunar New Year flights up 37%
Suvarnabhumi Airport, the main airport in Bangkok, is predicting a swell of travellers for the upcoming Lunar New Year holidays. The bustling airport located in the Bangkok suburb province of Samut Prakan, is expecting to see about 380 flights each day during the holiday according to the Suvarnabhumi Airport General Manager.
Airport officials, along with travel industry experts and airlines, are advising passengers not to cut it close and risk missing their flights and instead to follow the normally overly-prudent rule of arriving at least 2 hours ahead of any domestic flight or 3 hours before any international flight during the busy period.
The traffic is largely expected to be domestic travellers driving an increase in Lunar New Year passengers of over 37% from the same period last year. In fact, Thailand busiest airport and its main gateway to the world is expecting just under 5,000 flights between January 26 and February 7 this year, with 4,957 commercial aircraft and charter flights on the schedule.
The busy airport in the capital city is expecting 2,138 international flights during the holiday time, which is actually a decrease of 1.88% over the same period last year. But, another 2,819 flights are scheduled to land from domestic destinations within Thailand, a huge jump of over 96% from the Lunar New Year period last year.
The airlines requesting the most additional flights during the Lunar New Year holiday are somewhat predictable, with Bangkok Airways and Myanmar Airways topping the list along with, interestingly, South Korean budget airline T’Way Air.
Suvarnabhumi Airport is expecting an average of around 35,800 passengers each day during the 13-day holiday period for a total of about 465,400 Lunar New Year travellers. Just under 116,000 of those passengers are expected to be landing on international arrivals. About triple that amount, 349,500 travellers, are forecast to be flying on domestic routes
SOURCE: Bangkok Post
