Airports of Thailand

Airports of Thailand Plc (AOT) 

 

What’s new: AOT has released official April figures. In April, AOT counted 9.2mn passengers passing through its airports, up 21% YoY. Of these, 5.3mn were international (58% of the total) and 3.9mn were domestic (42%). This represented growth of 22% YoY for international passengers and 20% YoY for domestic.  

Comment:  

Underlying the strong growth is the return of international travelers, confirming Thai tourism recovery, plus the long Songkran holiday. 

AOT’s preliminary data for May 1-23 suggests continuing strong momentum, with accelerating growth of 25.1% YoY for total passengers: 26% YoY for international and 24% YoY for domestic. We note that this is confirmation of growing Thai tourism, but also that it is off last year’s low base in May when the country was put under martial law.  

Last Friday, the Transport Minister said that Thailand’s airports are overloaded by the enormous number of incoming flights. The Ministry of Transport is working to manage flight schedules to ease congestion and ensure safety. It expects to have this plan finalized in September this year.