Group seeks Trang airport resolution

A civic group in the southern province of Trang is petitioning the Ministry of Transport to speed up its handling of a construction problem at Trang airport which the group believes is to blame for a drop in the number of air passengers and a hike in air ticket prices.
Rat Phuklang, president of People’s Voice Club, said the group submitted a petition to Deputy Transport Minister Manaporn Charoensri on Wednesday about the airport’s new 1.2-billion-baht terminal, which has been left unfinished by the contractor for more than six months.
The contractor abandoned the building when it was about 98% done, and now it looks rather run-down, said Mr Rat, who also blamed the building for making people fly less to and from this airport.
He said that with a decrease in the demand for air travel services, air ticket prices are up and considerably higher than the average prices offered at airports in neighbouring provinces.
A one-way ticket between Trang and Bangkok has already reached 4,000 baht, he said.
The average price of a one-way ticket between Bangkok and Krabi and Hat Yat airports is between 1,500 and 2,000 baht, said a source.
The air ticket price for a one-way trip from Bangkok to Trang airport had previously gone as high as 9,000 baht, which sparked a lot of complaints, said the source.
The prices eventually fell but they are still considerably higher than those in the other provinces in the southern region, according to the same source.
Songklot Sawangwong, the provincial governor, said he had already sent an urgent letter to the Department of Airports (DoA) and the Civil Aviation Authority of Thailand (CAAT) about the unfinished airport terminal.
The DoA responded to the letter by saying it had already talked to the contractor who promised to return to work from Oct 1 but never came back, said the governor.
He agreed with some complaints that the airport also doesn’t have a sufficient number of security guards to ensure passengers’ safety.