According to the Bangkok Post, Nok Air will start a new route between Chiang Mai and Hat Yai from January.
BANGKOK- Competition is coming to Thailand’s longest domestic route. Nok Air announced to the Bangkok Post newspaper that it will open on January 1st a new daily jet service from the Northern City of Chiang Mai to Hat Yai, Thailand’s largest city in the South. The service will be in competition with Thai AirAsia which has been serving the route for now a year and a half.
The service, which will start on Jan 1, will be the longest flight on Nok Air’s network at two hours and five minutes, a Nok Air executive said to the Bangkok Post reporter.The airline decided to move into this route instead as competition is high on the Chiang Mai-Phuket sector, which is well served by Thai AirAsia and Bangkok Airways.
The Chiang Mai-Hat Yai flight takes off at 8.30am and arrives at 10.35am, while the return flight departs at 11.05am and touches down at 1.15pm. Nok Air expects a mix of business and leisure travellers to use the service.
As it just received its sixth Boeing 737-800 in its fleet, Nok Air is in parallel boosting frequencies on its existing main domestic routes, offering an additional 11 flights daily. On December 1st and January 1st, the carrier will upgrade capacities from Bangkok Don Mueang Airport to Chiang Mai with nine daily flights instead of six, to Hat Yai with seven daily flights instead of five.
It will also offer five daily frequencies to Nakhon Si Tammarat and Udon Thani instead of four, four daily flights to Surat Thani and Ubon Ratchathani instead of three as well as three frequencies per day to Chiang Rai and Phuket instead of two.
Luc Citrinot a French national is a freelance journalist and consultant in tourism and air transport with over 20 years experience. Based in Paris and Bangkok, he works for various travel and air transport trade publications in Europe and Asia.
