Bangkok Post : Air travel falls 4.8%

Thailand's six main airports including Suvarnabhumi finished 2008 with a 4.81% year-on-year contraction in passengers as the economic crisis and domestic political turmoil took their toll.

The total of 54.4 million passengers was down from 57.15 million in 2007, as the US sub-prime crisis and spiking oil prices affected demand.

But political tensions and the closure of Bangkok's two airports by the People's Alliance for Democracy between Nov 25 and Dec 3 were the final blow.

Airports of Thailand (AoT), which operates the six airports, reported December passengers at all airports fell 36% year-on-year to 3.51 million, led by Suvarnabhumi with a 37.6% fall to 2.35 million. International passengers in December through Suvarnabhumi fell 40.54% to 1.85 million as foreign tourists avoided Thailand. Domestic numbers fell 23.62% to 494,897.

Flight movements through Suvarnabhumi contracted 25.3% in December and 6.07% for the full year to 245,719.

With the exceptions of Don Mueang and Phuket, the three other AoT-operated airports showed contractions in 2008. Phuket, the country's second busiest airport, recorded a marginal 0.46% increase, as international numbers rose 10% to 2.4 million while domestic travel fell 5.48% to 3.21 million.

The figures underlined the resort island's attractiveness to international tourists from the perspective of a full year. But it was not immune from the effect of the Bangkok airport closures as December's numbers fell 19.8% from the same month in 2007 to 483,981.

The South's security issues continued to reduce passenger traffic at Hat Yai, and international flyers dropped 74.9% in 2008 to 20,090 while domestic numbers shrank 3.46% to 1.26 million, resulting on total passengers slipping 7.57% to 1.28 million for the year.

Though Chiang Rai has international airport status, almost all passenger throughput last year was domestic with a total of 682,146, down 9.6%.