U-Tapao Airport Expansion Plan
Inside the roughly 290-300 billion baht project transforming U-Tapao into Bangkok's third international airport
U-Tapao's current expansion traces back to a six-phase plan approved by the Thai government in 2022, aimed at growing the airport's annual passenger capacity toward 60 million. After years of delay tied to financing and the related high-speed rail project, the plan formally entered its delivery phase on April 3, 2026, when the Eastern Economic Corridor Office issued the notice to proceed to concessionaire U-Tapao International Aviation Co., Ltd. (UTA). This page walks through the construction timeline, the new runway and terminal, and the phased approach to growing capacity.
Project Timeline
The Eastern Economic Corridor Office (EECO) issued the official notice to proceed on April 3, 2026, starting a 50-year concession that runs to 2076. The plan sets a five-year construction period for the first phase, with commercial operations targeted to begin in 2031.
The project follows a contract management agreement signed between EECO and UTA on January 29, 2026, under which UTA agreed to waive certain conditions tied to the still-under-construction high-speed rail link, allowing airport construction to proceed without waiting for the rail project to finish.
Runway 2 Construction
A new 3,500-meter runway, Runway 2, is being built by the Royal Thai Navy under a 1,095-day construction program - roughly 30 months of construction followed by six months of testing - with completion scheduled for around October 29, 2028.
Runway 2's timeline is deliberately aligned with the new passenger terminal's construction, so that both can be commissioned and tested together ahead of the targeted 2031 opening.
New Passenger Terminal
The new terminal is planned at more than 157,000 square meters, designed to support over 12 million passengers a year in its initial configuration - a significant jump from U-Tapao's current civilian capacity.
Construction firm Italian-Thai Development (ITD) has been selected as contractor for the project, with financing being coordinated in part through loans from the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB).
Cargo and Logistics Capacity
Alongside passenger facilities, the expansion includes a dedicated air cargo and logistics terminal designed to handle more than one million tonnes of cargo per year, supporting manufacturing and export activity across the wider Eastern Economic Corridor.
Phased Capacity Growth
The first operational phase has been scaled down from an original target of 6 million passengers a year to around 3 million, reflecting current travel demand and the continued absence of the Don Mueang–Suvarnabhumi–U-Tapao high-speed rail link. The full 6-million-passenger first-phase capacity is expected to be activated once ridership on that rail line reaches about 80% of its target.
Looking further out, the long-term goal under the original 2022 six-phase plan remains a 60-million-passenger annual capacity, which would put U-Tapao on a similar scale to Bangkok's existing two main airports.