Thailand Presses On With Provincial Airport Developments Despite Having Low Or No Commercial Air Traffic

Thai authorities remain keen to upgrade and expand state-owned provincial airports and even build new ones, even though many existing ones are barely utilised or are ‘ghost airports.’

The Department of Airports (DOA), the agency under the Ministry of Transport in charge of Thailand’s small airports, has shown no sign of delaying, scaling down or scraping its airport development schemes that are costing 27.25 billion baht (US$826 million) between 2018 and 2022.

The government budget earmarked, in the five-year period, improvements to 17 airports owned and operated by the DOA including those in the southern province of Krabi and the northeast provinces of Udon Thani and Buriram.

Meanwhile, it is seeking another 6.79 billion baht in state budget to carry out the expansion of the south’s Chumphon and Ranong airports in the period 2023-2028.

On DOA’s radar…