Airports of Thailand’s Board of Directors has recently agreed to invest in a major upgrade of Mae Fah Luang Chiang Rai Airport.
AoT’s chairman, Prasong Poontaneat, said the upgrade will be divided into three phases at an estimated cost of THB6.2 billion.
Phases one (2016 to 2021) will cost THB3.7 billion to expand the aircraft parking area towards the south side and improve access roads. The extra parking bays will raise capacity to 3 million passengers per year, 16 aircraft movement per hour, 10 aircraft parking bays and 1,200 car parking spaces.
inside no 4Phase two (2021 to 2025) will cost THB600 million and will continue the expansion at the south side of terminal with more aircraft parking bays and ground handling facilities. It will raise capacity to 3.3 million passengers per year and increase aircraft parking bays to 12.
The most important improvement will be a partial taxiway in phase three (2026 to 2030) that will cost THB1.9 billion to construct. The taxiway will reduce the distance aircraft taxi on the runway to reach the terminal building. This will allow more landings per hour. However, it is only a partial taxiway at the north side of the terminal, which will cut the time an aircraft is on the runway after it has landed. However, aircraft preparing to take off would still need to taxi on the runway to the south end to begin take-off. Capacity should increase to 3.7 million passengers per year, 30 aircraft movement per hour and 13 aircraft parking bays at the end of phase three.
AoT estimates the airport will handle 2.5 million passengers, 18,700 flights and 7,000 tons of cargo by 2020.
By 2025, it will handle 2.9 million passengers, 21,300 flights and 8,400 tons of cargo and by 2035 3.63 million passengers, 25,500 flights and 10,000 tons of cargo.
Last year, the airport handled 1,745,568 passengers (+26.58%), 13,402 flights (+22.0%) and 5,273 tons of cargo (+46.07%).
Source: http://www.ttrweekly.com/site/2016/09/aot-to-expand-chiang-rai-airport/
