Source: AFP
Major airport expansion projects are taking off across Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam, and a new airline is set to launch next year — all building on an expected boom in air travel in Southeast Asia, fueled by Chinese and Indian tourists.
However, there are doubts whether it will materialize in an uncertain economic environment and as concerns about the impact of travel on climate change.
Thailand’s Really Cool Airlines is expected to start flying between Bangkok and Japan around mid-2024, but CEO Patee Sarasin — a veteran of the region’s financial sector — says it has been a battle to launch a new carrier so soon after the pandemic.
“It’s a lot of money. It was quite exhausting to raise the funds,” he told AFP.
“There are some points (where you’re like) ‘why am I doing this?’ It’s crossed my mind too many times.”
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Patee has run budget carrier Nok Air for more than a decade, but while he is coy about the details of the new venture, he claims it could “change the paradigm of aviation”.
Flying took a hammering globally during the pandemic as international travel shut down, but the industry is bullish on its recovery, as evidenced by a flurry of large ticket orders at this month’s Dubai Air Show and big jumps in profits for companies such as Air France -KLM and Ryanair.
Explosion at the airport
Southeast Asia is becoming a hot property, with private and public players competing for an expanding market.
The region currently accounts for 10 percent of global traffic — more than 500 million passengers in 2019.
And Boeing expects that rate to grow about 9.5 percent annually over the next two decades, well above the global average of 6.1 percent.
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Across the region from Bangkok to Hanoi, governments are pouring billions of dollars into updating and expanding airport infrastructure.
A new terminal opened at Suvarnabhumi, Bangkok’s main international airport, in September, and a third runway is landing.
Source: AFP
There are plans for a third terminal at the city’s other airport, Don Mueang, as well as doubling capacity at Chiang Mai in the north, and expanding to the major island tourist hub of Phuket.
Cambodia has big plans to make Phnom Penh’s new $1.5 billion airport, due in 2025, a regional hub to rival Bangkok and Singapore, with around 50 million passengers by 2050.
Further evidence of the kingdom’s ambitions came earlier this month with the opening of the new $1.1 billion Chinese-funded airport in Siem Reap, the gateway to the Angkor Wat temple complex, Cambodia’s biggest tourist asset.
Built as part of Beijing’s extensive ‘Belt and Road’ infrastructure plan, Siem Reap Airport is designed to handle 12 million passengers a year by 2040 – double the total number of foreign tourists who visited the country in 2019.
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Philip Kao, president of a Siem Reap tourism association, hailed the new airport as a “game changer” because its longer runway means it can handle larger planes flying long distances.
But while some are hoping for a tourism recovery, others are grappling with the environmental impact of the construction boom.
Outside Ho Chi Minh City, work on Vietnam’s largest airport, the $15 billion Long Thanh Terminal, has blanketed nearby neighborhoods in thick red dust.
Turmoil Ahead?
Tourist numbers have yet to reach pre-pandemic highs and Mayur Patel, Asia director of OAG aviation data consultancy, said they were unlikely to do so before late 2024 or early 2025.
“It is fragmented economically, but there is a concerted effort to bring tourism back. The complexities will subside in the coming years,” he told AFP.
Source: AFP
Thailand, where tourism accounts for about a fifth of gross domestic product, has stepped up measures in recent weeks to boost numbers by granting visas on arrival to visitors from China and India — two huge customer pools.
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Analysts expect growth to be fueled by China and India’s growing middle class — as well as a younger generation more willing to travel than their parents.
However, the OAG warns that the region’s tourism has at times become too dependent on China and for now the number of Chinese visitors is still well below pre-pandemic levels as the Asian superpower faces a challenging economic slowdown.
In the deep south of Thailand, Betong International Airport stands as a monument to misguided expansion.
The airport, which opened in 2022 in a remote spot near the Malaysian border, has struggled to find passengers and is now idle as airlines ceased operations within months.
Source: AFP