PHUKET: Airports of Thailand management and staff at Phuket International Airport (AoT Phuket) welcomed 190 arrivals from Taiwan on the first flight Tigerair to the island yesterday (May 10).
Flight IT503 departed from the Taiwanese capital Taipei and landed at Phuket International Airport around 3:35 pm, completing the TPE-HKT route (Taoyuan International Airport – Phuket International Airport), according to AoT Phuket.
There were a total of 190 passengers onboard the flight who were greeted and bestowed gifts by representatives of Phuket International Airport.
The Taiwanese Airbus A320 left Phuket around 5pm and arrived in Taipei just after 10pm. Prior to the Phuket flight, the same aircraft had flown several times from Taipei to Bangkok and back.
After the COVID-19 pandemic ended, the Taiwanese low-cost carrier resumed flights to Bangkok before adding Phuket as a new destination. According to AoT’s 2019 yearly report, Phuket was not listed among Tigerair’s destinations that year.
Phuket International Airport’s May schedule shows 46 companies operating international flights to and from Phuket, which is lower than the number of companies in the first quarter of the year, despite the return of Chinese carriers, both low-cost and full-service.
Chinese carriers now make up around one-third of all the companies flying to Phuket from abroad.
