The minister continued by saying that the government would set up a committee to fine-tune the details of the project. The government had previously announced that a planned expansion of the airport would go ahead and it would allocate THB62 billion for the project.
Minister Juntong said initial estimates had put the cost of a third runway at THB19 billion. He finished off by saying the expansion at Suvarnabhumi needed to be enacted quickly to cope with ever-increasing numbers of tourists coming to Thailand.
The national airport operator, Airports of Thailand, has said that the expansion project will raise the overall annual capacity at Suvarnabhumi to 80 million passengers. The current terminal was opened in 2006 and was designed to handle 45 million passengers a year. Passenger numbers have exceeded this for each of the past three years.
Green light for new Suvarnabhumi Airport runway
News in Asia
Thailand’s government has given the green light for the construction of an extra runway at the country’s chief international airport. Deputy prime-minister Prajin Juntong told media sources that increasing Suvarnabhumi Airport’s runways from two to three was all part of the master-plan to raise the facility’s annual passenger capacity.