A new flock of no-frills airlines is descending on Bangkok's Don Mueang airport, whose significance as the region's low-cost carrier (LCC) hub is growing amid optimism for a traffic recovery.
Don Mueang airport’s rise as a low-cost hub is stretching the lone operating terminal to its limit. PATTARAPONG CHATPATTARASILL
Tigerair Taiwan and Golden Myanmar Airlines are the latest no-frills airlines to operate through Don Mueang, beginning on Sept 1 with scheduled flights from their respective bases in Taipei and Yangon.
They will join Singapore's Scoot, which has confirmed a shift of its operations from Bangkok's gateway airport, Suvarnabhumi, to Don Mueang on the same date.
Scoot's relocation comes just ahead of the planned launch of NokScoot, the 51:49 joint venture between Scoot and Thai budget airline Nok Air, offering medium- and long-haul flights from Don Mueang.
Both Tigerair Taiwan and Golden Myanmar want to operate a daily flight through Don Mueang with Airbus 320-200 single-aisle jets, airport general manager Chaturongkapon Sodmanee told the Bangkok Post.
Meanwhile, THAI Smile, the budget subsidiary of Thai Airways International, yesterday confirmed that it will shift part of its domestic flight operations to Don Mueang from Suvarnabhumi, commencing on Aug 8.
Thai AirAsia X, the country's first long-haul LCC, on Sept 1 will ramp up its services from Don Mueang with scheduled non-stop flights to Narita and Osaka, following on the heels of the carrier's maiden direct flight to South Korea's Incheon airport on June 17.
These new LCCs and incremental traffic by current players will push traffic volume through the limit of Don Mueang's passenger handling capacity of 18.5 million a year at the sole operating facility, Terminal 1.
Five budget airlines, namely Thai AirAsia, Thai AirAsia X, Nok Air, Thai Lion Air and Orient Thai, operate scheduled flights through Don Mueang.
Together those flights represent 90% of Don Mueang's total traffic, with the rest shared by a host of charter operators.
Mr Chaturongkapon reckons that passenger traffic through Don Mueang, which processed 12 million travellers in the nine-month period to June, will soar to 19 million by the end of September as LCCs boost their operations.
But by December, the renovation of Terminal 2 at Don Mueang should be finished, boosting the airport's overall passenger handling capacity to 30 million a year.
The overhaul is three months behind schedule after some of the work involved, including air conditioning and electrical wiring, proved more complicated than expected.
Terminal 2 should be partially open in October, Mr Chaturongkapon said.
Privately owned Golden Myanmar, the neighbouring country's first LCC, has chosen to resume its Bangkok-Yangon service, suspended several months ago, at Don Mueang rather than Suvarnabhumi.
Set up in August 2012, Golden Myanmar began operations in January 2013.