Don Mueang airport urgently needs wide-body planes

Don Mueang airport urgently needs wide-body planes

Passengers crowd Don Mueang airport, Bangkok, during the Songkran festival in April. (File photo by Varuth Hirunyatheb)
Passengers crowd Don Mueang airport, Bangkok, during the Songkran festival in April. (File photo by Varuth Hirunyatheb)

Airports of Thailand Plc (AoT) will ask low-cost airlines to use wide-body planes at Bangkok's Don Mueang airport, which has reached capacity.

Sumpun Kutranon, deputy general manager of Don Mueang airport, said that this year Don Mueang has reached its full capacity at 52 flights per hour and it is not possible for it to expand its runways.

The bottleneck is likely to cause flight delays, he said. The airport authority will ask the management of low-cost airlines that operate numerous flights at Don Mueang to use wide-body aircraft that carry more than 300 passengers per flight.

At present, low-cost carriers' planes carry 100-200 passengers per flight, Mr Sumpun said.

He said that Don Mueang airport has also reached its maximum passenger capacity this year -- 40 million people. The facility is expected to serve 41 million people next year and 45 million people in 2023.

Mr Sumpun said it is expanding visa-on-arrival and immigration check areas and improving car park facilities at Don Mueang in a bid to relieve congestion.

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