Thailand aims for 1.2m annual flights in 2025

BTN News

Sunday, 19 May 2024

The Civil Aviation Authority of Thailand (CAAT) has announced a plan - part of the government's Ignite Thailand program - to become the region’s aviation hub, boosting air traveller capacity to 270 million people a year by 2037 and to be a top five air logistics country in the Asia-Pacific.

It wants to make the country a hub for tourism, medical treatment, food, aviation, logistics, electric vehicles, digital economy and finance by 2030.

Under the three-stage plan, the CAAT will increase Thailand’s airport capacity to 1.2 million flights and 180 million passengers a year by 2025 and a connecting time (MCT) for international flight connections at a maximum 75 minutes.

The second stage will take airport capacity to 1.4 million flights and 210 million passengers a year by 2028 and the MCT to 60 minutes.
In the third stage – from 2029 to 2037 – the CAAT seeks 2.1 million flights and 270 million passengers, and to reduce the MCT to less than 45 minutes.