Thailand aviation: AoT commits to Don Mueang and Chiang Mai projects; Bangkok Airways waits in wings

It would be no exaggeration to say that the COVID-19 pandemic set Thailand's air transport and tourism sectors back by years. Both reduced to not much above zero in 2020 and 2021. But traffic is coming back, and there is great anticipation that visitors from China - by far the biggest provider - will now start to return to previous levels.

Accordingly, Airports of Thailand (AoT) has firmed up prior commitments to build a new airport in Chiang Mai, an important northern city, to support the existing one, and to construct a new terminal at Bangkok's Don Mueang airport, which was once dismissed as redundant but is now again a key part of the city's aviation infrastructure in the domestic and low cost segments.

But perhaps the more interesting development is the acknowledgement by Bangkok Airways, already a long-time operator of three small Thai airports and latterly of a larger one to the south of Bangkok in a vacation hot-spot, that it is considering investing in a new airport in the 'Andaman Triangle', working on a PPP basis with Airports of Thailand.

To have an airline cooperating in PPP projects outside the United States, in Southeast Asia, while not unique, will certainly generate curiosity in the region.