Charter flights, particularly from Russia, were also up–by 64%–compared to 2009. Russian flights jumped 128%.

Overall passenger arrivals were 7.05 million in 2010, putting strain on the airport and underlining the urgent need for the B5 billion revamp under way to be completed so the airport can meet its target of 12.5 million visitors by 2014.

The direct flights, and continued rise and rise of low cost carriers like AirAsia opening up new routes, such as between Phuket and Bali, are the main reasons for the surge in numbers.

Runway to more and more Phuket visitor arrivals

In 2010 direct flights were started by Hainan Airlines of China and Qatar Airways from Doha, while Mehan Air from Iran and Strategic Airlines from Australia announced the opening of new routes in 2011.

And the Russians keep on coming. Pega Touristik, a tour operator, increased charter flights from eight Russian cities and Rossiya Russian Airlines, based in St Petersburg announced it would scheduled flights connecting with Thai Airways International through Bangkok.

Aeroflot, the Russian national carrier, started three weekly flights directly from Moscow to Phuket and Transero, a scheduled and charter carrier, started charters from St Petersburg and other Russian cities.

From Germany, TUIFLY, a charter group, started direct high season Berlin-Phuket flights and Blu-Express, from Rome, Italy, also flies to Phuket via Bangkok.

All of these flights translated in visitor arrivals [January-September, 2010-Source: C9 2010 Hotel Market Update, January 2011] from Asian countries being up 44%, but overall European visitor arrivals dropped 1%.

Top source markets for January-September, 2010, in order of numbers were Australia, China, United Kingdom, Sweden and Russia. Top growth markets were China, Middle East, Denmark, South Korea and Australia and the top Asian markets were China, Middle East, South Korea, Malaysia and Japan.

Out in 2011 will go V Australia, replaced by Strategic Airlines.

Phuket Visitor Arrivals Soar Skyward in 2010 is an article from: Phuket Observer - Phuket lifestyle magazine.

Phuket International Airport - seeing plenty of business.

The number of tourists coming into Thailand in the first nine months of the year is up significantly on the same period of 2009, with Phuket leading the charge.

Airports of Thailand, which runs Bangkok’s two airports, Suvarnabhumi and Don Muang, along with Chiang Mai, Chiang Rai, Phuket and Haad Yai, reports that between January and September Suvarnabhumi registered an increase in international aircraft movements of 5.28 percent and a slight improvement in domestic movements (1.41 percent). The aircraft were a great deal fuller, however, with international passenger numbers up 68 percent over the same period last year.

Phuket airport saw huge leaps in aircraft movements, both for international and domestic flights, with respective increases of 40.23 percent and 22.84 percent over the nine months compared with the same period last year.

International passenger numbers for Phuket in the nine-month period grew 50.33 percent while domestic figures showed a more modest increase of 8.63 percent.

Thai Immigration Department figures for September show that neighbouring Malaysia provided the largest number of arrivals into Thailand in the month- 174,000 out of the total of 1.91 million. Malaysia was followed by China (100,000), Japan (88,000), India (65,000), Australia (62,000), South Korea (59,000) and the UK (52,000).

Phuket tourist arrivals way up is an article from: Phuket Observer - Phuket lifestyle magazine.

Vindicated: The award is justification for the resort owner's decision to completely remake the Indigo Pearl.

The Indigo Pearl Resort on Nai Yang Beach has won the accolade of “Asia’s Leading Design Hotel” in the annual “Oscars of the travel world” – the World Travel Awards.

The award is a vindication of the decision by the resort’s owner, Vichit Na Ranong, to completely overhaul the hotel’s design. He closed the place down so that it could receive a major makeover at the hands of architect and designer Bill Bensley, with a theme based on K. Vichit’s family’s tin-mining background.

Reaction, when the resort reopened in December 2006, ranged from delighted applause at the audacity of the design to disgust (mainly from regular guests of the resort’s previous incarnation as the Pearl Nai Yang Resort).

“This award is an immense accolade recognising Indigo Pearl’s unparalleled architecture marvels. It is a further reflection of the team’s continued efforts in enhancing our guests’ overall experience at the resort,” said Arnaud Girodon, the resort’s GM.

“We are proud and privileged to have received this recognition conferred by guests and travel trade industry players.”

Also scoring high in the World Travel Awards was the Dusit Laguna Resort, which scooped up three awards out of six in the section for Thailand – leading beach resort, leading golf resort and leading spa resort.

Phuket resorts score in World Travel Awards is an article from: Phuket Observer - Phuket lifestyle magazine.

Air Bagan Fokker 100. Photo by Alan Radecki.

Air Bagan, Myanmar’s largest independent airline in terms of the number of aircraft, is to begin flights between the capital of Myanmar, Yangon, and Phuket.

According to Agence France Presse (AFP), the Myanmar Times quoted an Air Bagan spokeswoman as saying the service will begin in early December with flights on Mondays and Fridays, using a Fokker 100 aircraft, which seats about 100 passengers.

Air Bagan also plans to increase its flights between Yangon and Chiang Mai, the Myanmar Times reported. The current service is twice a week, on Thursdays and Sundays.

Fares for the Phuket-Yangon route have yet to be announced, but the Internet fare for the Yangon-Hanoi route, currently the airline’s most expensive, is about US$300 each way. Nor is it clear whether the route will be direct, or whether it will be an add-on to the current Yangon-Dawei-Myeik-Kawthaung route (Kawthaung is close to the Thai city of Ranong).

The airline has nine aircraft but three of these – two 250seat Airbus A310-222s and a 78-seat ATR 72-500 – are currently not used on Air Bagan’s public routes. They remain parked for the time being.

Air Bagan, along with its owners, Htoo Trading and tycoon Tay Za, are on the US economic sanctions list owing to their alleged connections with the military junta that runs the country.

The airline’s website is here.

Air Bagan to start flights from Myanmar to Phuket is an article from: Phuket Observer - Phuket lifestyle magazine.

Phuket International Airport from the air. The recently completed Terminal 2 can be seen closest to the camera.

Phuket International Airport may have seen only a slight increase in passenger throughput last year, compared with 2007, but its owner, the Airports Authority of Thailand (AOT), clearly believes the global financial crisis will have no long-term effect on the island’s ability to attract ever-growing numbers of airlines and visitors.

The government in Bangkok plainly agrees – it has just approved a 5.8-billion-baht (US$175 million) plan to increase the airport’s capacity to 12.5 million passengers by 2018. This is on top of the recently completed second terminal, which increased capacity to 6.5 million passengers a year, at a cost of 516 million baht.

This year, the AOT expects the airport to accommodate 41,000 flights and about 6 million passengers, already close to terminal capacity. Part of the reason for this is the popularity of the airport – which charges lower landing fees than Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi – with low-cost carriers. One of these was Air Asia, which made Phuket a regional hub earlier this year, providing direct flights between the island and Vietnam, Indonesia and Hong Kong.

Under the plan, the current international terminal will become the domestic terminal building. Photo courtesy PhuketAirportOnline.com

The B5.8 billion budget will pay for the construction of more taxiways, 11 parking bays for aircraft, a new international passenger terminal, conversion of the existing international terminal into a domestic terminal, a new cargo building, new roads and improved transport systems, a parking garage for the international terminal, improvements in car parking areas, and a new airport office and airline offices. It will be funded entirely by revenue from the AOT, a listed company majority-owned by the state.

There is, however, no mention in the plan of an extension to the runway. Currently, all sizes of aircraft can land at Phuket, but the runway is too short for very large aircraft such as Boeing 747s and the new Airbus giant, the 380, to take off fully laden for long-haul flights.

Dovetailing with the airport expansion, but not part of the same budget, is the construction of a new road from the airport to Phuket Town. This has yet to receive government approval, but already many people who own land along its proposed route have donated parts of that land for the new road.

Green light for B5.8bn Phuket Airport expansion is an article from: Phuket Observer - Phuket lifestyle magazine.

AirAsia launches flights from Jakarta and Medan to Phuket is an article from: Phuket Observer - Phuket lifestyle magazine.

Jetstar A320 at Singapore's Changi Airport. - Photo by Terence Ong

If budget airlines have their way, one of Phuket’s biggest source of tourists in the coming “high” season will be Australia. Following Virgin’s announcements of direct flights from Perth, Melbourne and Brisbane from mid-November, Jetstar has announced it will add two more flights a week to its Sydney-Phuket Service from mid-December.

Jetstar currently flies to Phuket on Monday, Wednesdays and Fridays (with return flights the same evening). From December 15 it will add Saturdays and Sundays to the schedule. Jetstar also flies three times a week between Melbourne and Bangkok.

The new flights will be aboard Jetstar’s seventh A330-200 aircraft, adding 1,200 seats to the route.

Phuket will also benefit from another Jetstar decision, to revive its twice-daily service from Singapore, starting on December 15. The airline dumped the route in March last year.

Jetstar’s Sydney-Phuket flights times will be as follows:

From Sydney: Mon, Fri, 14:15; Sat, Sun 14:35; Wed 15:15.

From Phuket: Mon, Fri, 21.00; Wed, Sat, Sun, 22:20

The Singapore-Phuket service will be as follows:

From Singapore: Tue, Wed, Thu, Sat, 08:35; Mon/Fri/Sun, 06:35; Daily, 20:35.

From Phuket: Tue, Wed, Thu, Sat, 10:00; Mon, Fri Sun, 07:50; Daily, 22:00.

Jetstar adds Sydney-Phuket flights, revives Singapore route is an article from: Phuket Observer - Phuket lifestyle magazine.

Thai AirAsia Airbus at Changi Airport, Singapore. - Photo by Terence Ong.

Thai AirAsia has been giving more details of its plans for its new regional hub in Phuket, including a decision to base in Phuket two of three new Airbus A320s it has on order. That number may rise to four later.

The airline’s chief executive, Tassaporn Bijleveld, said that, from mid-November, AirAsia will add direct daily flights from Phuket to Hong Kong and Jakarta to its existing services to Kuala Lumpur and Singapore, and its eight daily flights to Bangkok.

New AirAsia route Phuket to Hong Kong from November 15th 2009. Introductory one way fare 999 baht. Book from October 5th to 11th. Travel from November 15th to July 31st, 2010. Book online at www.airasia.com

In April last year, Airports of Thailand, which owns Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi and Phuket airports, along with three other international airports in Thailand, offered discounts of up 95% off its landing fees at the non-Bangkok airports. Parking and landing fees are still considerably lower in Phuket than they are in Bangkok, Tassaporn noted.

Reports quoted him as saying that later on, AirAsia plans to link Phuket direct with other regional points such as Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam, Siem Reap in Cambodia and Vientiane in Laos, as well as other Indonesia cities.

The direct service between Phuket and Hong Kong is being welcomed by the local tourism industry and by Hong Kongers who are regulars in Phuket or have vacation homes on the island. There are other airlines on the direct route, notably Dragon Air, but competition from a low-cost carrier will definitely be applauded.

Meanwhile, the Bangkok Post reports that AirAsia will begin scaling back its existing services between Bangkok and Hanoi, Macao and Penang in October.

An increasing number of airlines, especially from Australia, are flying direct to Phuket. See here and here for earlier stories.

AirAsia daily flights from Phuket to Hong Kong and Jakarta in November is an article from: Phuket Observer - Phuket lifestyle magazine.

Now here’s a deal for anyone in Singapore: Fly with Tiger Airways to Phuket, free. Okay, so you will have to pay something – tax is S$45 (governments always want their pound of flesh) and there are unspecified “charges”. But that’s still a pretty fine deal.

You can also fly to Phuket, return, from Bangkok, for as little as 486 baht, depending on how far ahead you book. That’s on Air Asia. Nok Air is offering the same flights for as little as B257.

These are some of the guys already flying into Phuket. Now Virgin Blue is apparently planning to get in the game with daily flights from Australia.

Budget airlines seem to have spotted something that surprisingly few others have: that holidays in Phuket are really cheap at the moment, with hotels offering all sorts of deals – not surprising when the Phuket Tourism Association is talking about occupancy rates of 25%, compared with the usual figure at this time of year of around 50-60%.

Phuket’s been hit this year by a triple whammy – the Global Economic Blues, the political violence in Bangkok and the Mexican flu.

Let’s look at these problems. The Blues, of course, affect people everywhere. Even if they still have their jobs, many want to hang on to their money. But if you raise your eyes from the piggy bank clutched in your trembling hands, you’ll find that this is a time for great deals.

You’ve already had a taste of the air fares. Hotels in Phuket are just as accommodating. For example, the sooper dooper Serenity Terraces – where Grand Prix hero Kimi Raikonnen has a pied à terre – is currently offering stays for as little as B4,000 a night for couples.

The J W Marriott is offering 50 percent off, Hilton Phuket Arcadia‘s charging around B4,500 a night per room, including taxes, and you can get two nights at the Sheraton Grande Laguna for less than B4,000. That was today. Who knows what tomorrow holds?

So much for the Blues. Now the reds and yellows. In Bangkok, everything is quiet again – no riots by red shirts or yellow shirts for a month. That’s not to say that everything is perfect; there’s probably a way to go before the politics of Thailand gets back to a normal temperature. But Phuket’s 800 km away, and there never was a problem on the island. Bangkok might as well be another country. (Some Phuketians will tell you that it is.)

As for Mexican/swine flu aka H1N1, let’s take a look at the numbers. As of May 21, the World Health Organization lists 85 deaths worldwide. According to the US National Lightning Safety Institute, 24,000 people die each year from lightning strikes. Does that put things in perspective?

Seriously good travel deals in Phuket is an article from: Phuket Observer - Phuket lifestyle magazine.

Soi Romanee, as seen on MapJack

Most people will have heard of Google Street View by now, with its camera cars clicking their way down streets in the States and the UK, and its special face-blurring software, turning whole populations into Play-Doh people.

Google Street View doesn’t cover Phuket, and its probably going to be a while until it does. But someone else is already here. It’s called MapJack.

MapJack was started in 2007 and by last year had already made Time magazine’s Top 50 Websites list for its imagery of San Francisco and other Californian cities. From San Francisco, MapJack leaped clear across the Pacific to start doing cities in Thailand.  One suspects that one of the website principals takes his holidays here.

The images have blue circles set in them. Click on any of these to advance into the view, or drag with your mouse to turn and look around. The photography is beautiful – crisp, bright and colourful.

Apart from Phuket, areas covered are Chiang Mai, Krabi, Hua Hin, Ayutthaya, Mae Hong Son and Pai. They also took pix in Pattaya, and got into hot water for uploading uncensored images from Sin City. They took them down again. Pattaya panoramic images are currently available on Pattaya Photo Guide.

If you see someone like this, put your clothes back on.

In Phuket, you can go for virtual walks along streets in the old centre of Phuket Town, you can take a look around the Laguna Golf Club, Patong, stroll along Yanui, Kata and Karon beaches, go to Layan, to Boat Lagoon and Royal Puket marinas, and a bunch of other places.

The image at the top of this article is of Soi Romanee in Phuket Town, from the website. Click on it for a screenshot of the MapJack page layout. To go to MapJack, click here.

Oh yes, one last thing.  MapJack doesn’t blur faces like Google Street View, so behave yourself out there. Unlike Google, which does its photography with a rig strapped to the top of a car, MapJack has a wearable rig (see right), allowing the photographer to go down narrow alleys or even inside buildings. Even, theoretically (if clumsily), into your bathroom. Thanks to Warzauwynn on Flickr for the pic.

Virtually walking around Phuket is an article from: Phuket Observer - Phuket lifestyle magazine.