Hua Hin airport to be expanded to accommodate larger aircraft

[Pleng]

However, I really don't see the market for the airport unless it's for say golf charters and the like. It's too close to Bangkok to be efficiently used as a BKK - HH - BKK means of transport, so I don't see how it WILL work.

Simple... don't do routes to BKK! The Chaing Mai route seems pretty successful. There are other places that might do well. Samui is one possibility. I imagine Hat Yai and Nong Khae could be popular with visa-runners. Phuket, perhaps would also make sense.

I know I'd certainly take up flights to those places for 'weekend breaks' if the opportunity was there, and the price was agreeable.

The airport was upgraded, but never certified as International.

Does an airport need International certification to run international flights? I seem to remember there were flights from Hua Hin-Kuala Lumpar a couple of years back.

[wpcoe]

I thought there were flights to Malaysia at one time? How could the airport not be an "international" airport? I thought if an airport had CIQ (Customs/Immigrations/Quarantine) facilities it was an international airport. Does Hua Hin Airport have those facilities?

[Peter1990]

This proposal sounds very odd to me. The runday is supposedly already wide enough to accept 737, and it seems unlikely to be expanded in the lenght, which would likely be necessary if ever any longhaul aicraft would want to operate here.
And then, there's not much of a terminal building either, so all this and the fact that there are close to zero scheduled flights currently make it hard to understand where this may lead.