| Thai AirAsia To Stay At Suvarnabhumi Airport |
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BANGKOK, March 22 (Bernama) -- Thai AirAsia will be the only low-cost airline operating both domestic and international flights from the Suvarnabhumi International Airport when Bangkok's Don Muang reopens for operation on Sunday.
Thai AirAsia chief executive officer, Tassapon Bijleveld, said staying at the new airport would offer travel convenience to thousands of its passengers.
"By making Suvarnabhumi our hub for all flights, we will make air travel easier for our guests. We offer them access to the AirAsia network, and convenience in connecting to domestic and international flights," he said here today.
From Suvarnabhumi, which was opened last September, Thai AirAsia operates about 80 flights daily to nine domestic and 10 international destinations.
Thai AirAsia, a subsidiary of AirAsia Bhd, was the first airline to propose reopening the old airport, citing higher operating costs at Suvarnabhumi which has been plagued by problems since its opening day.
Last month, the Thai Cabinet made a surprise decision to reopen the old airport for both domestic and international flights due to congestion at Suvarnabhumi and to allow for repair works but later agreed to start with domestic flights first.
Thai Airways International and the two other Thai low-cost operators, Nok Air and One-To-Go, will operate their non-transit domestic flights at Don Muang which is expected to handle 140 flights per day.
Thai AirAsia's domestic destinations include Chiang Mai, Chiang Rai, Hat Yai, Krabi, Narathiwat, Phuket, Surat Thani, Ubon Ratchathani and Udon Thani while international destinations are Xiamen, Macau, Phnom Penh, Yangon, Hanoi, Kuala Lumpur, Langkawi, Kota Kinabalu, Penang and Singapore.
It will also start daily Bangkok-Xiamen flights from Sunday.
The increase in flight frequencies from four a week comes less than two years after Thai AirAsia began flying to Xiamen with an average load factor of 85 percent in 2006.
-- BERNAMA
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