As Thailand is expecting to see more arrivals at the country’s main airport, its managing company Airports of Thailand Pcl (AOT) will be investing 140 billion baht (US$4.26 billion) for expansion projects to accommodate the growth.

When discussing the planned improvements, Senior Executive Vice President Anake Teeraviwatchai told reporters that the investment will go to building a new satellite terminal, a third passenger terminal, and a fourth runway at Bangkok’s Survarnbhumi Airport. The new gates and the additional runway will allow the airport to boost its capacity up to 150 million passengers leading up to the year 2030.

Survarnbhumi Airport is already seeing 60 million passengers a year – well over the designed capacity of 45 million passengers per year. As the main gateway to the country, the Airports of Thailand has seen service quality deteriorate and congestion despite seeing record profits.

The new planned phases such as the new terminal and fourth runway is expected to begin after 2021, after the ongoing expansion projects already in progress. The current second phase of improvements is expected to boost passenger capacity to 60 million per year by 2020, with the third phase will bring that number up to 90 million passengers per year.

Among the new projects that travelers could see within the next few years will be a new passenger terminal worth USD $1.3 billion, which is expected to be built by 2021.

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