AoT reports a rosy February

23 Mar 2010 2108 | World Travel News

Airports of Thailand reports traffic in February improved 16.26% in aircraft movements and 25.62% in passenger traffic over the same month in 2009.

The high growth rate was due mainly to a low-traffic base in 2009 triggered by airport closures in December 2008. When compared with performances in 2007/2008, 2010?s February traffic lagged behind marginally.

Against that benchmark, aircraft movements at all six AoT airports were still down 6.31%, while passenger traffic fell short at 0.19%, suggesting airlines have successfully adjusted capacity to match demand.

However, when taking a look closer at the breakdown, there were 30,108 more international passengers in February this year, despite 855 fewer international aircraft movements. It was concluded that airlines operating international flights were running at high cabin factors out of Bangkok during February.

Suvarnabhumi Airport?s international aircraft movement grew 8.35% while international passengers surged 22.99%. As for combined domestic traffic at Bangkok?s two airports, aircraft movements increased 16.3%, while passenger traffic jumped 21.19%.

Phuket Airport performed well with international aircraft movements growing 62.35% from 1,381 to 2,242, while passenger traffic leaped 70.88%, from 219,057 to 374,321. International arrivals increased mainly due to more charter flights during the high tourism season, notably from Russia, as well as scheduled regional flights by Thai AirAsia, which established Phuket as a second hub. Domestic aircraft movements and passengers also increased significantly at 23.5% and 30.86% respectively.

Chiang Mai Airport logged a 26.84% increase in international aircraft movements and 56.2% in passenger traffic. Domestic traffic grew 28.94% in aircraft movements and 21.81% in passenger traffic.

Chiang Rai Airport saw a 22.75% increase in aircraft movements and 24.01%, passenger traffic. Hat Yai had the lowest growth at 10.69% in aircraft movements and 16.16% in passenger traffic.

Sourced = The TTR Weekly