Surat Thani Airport

Updated 29th Aug 2026

Departures from Surat Thani Airport at a glance

• 18flights a day10th busiest of 30 airports
• 2routes from here
• 4airlines
• 08:25 – 19:05first and last00061218

Collected 2 September 2026. Not live — check with the airline before booking.

Surat Thani International Airport (URT) sits about 21 km west of Surat Thani city centre, on the mainland across the water from the Gulf islands. It is run by Thailand's Department of Airports (DOA) and it opened on 15 April 1981. Ferry companies sell combined road and boat tickets from here to the Gulf islands.

Who runs Surat Thani Airport

The Department of Airports operates the airport and says so in the copyright line at the foot of its own minisite for the place. General reference sources give ownership of the airfield to the Royal Thai Air Force, so the body that runs it and the body that owns it are not the same one.

That minisite is published in Thai. A language toggle in its header switches the menus and the section headings to English, but the department's notices about this airport stay in Thai.

The Royal Thai Air Force shares the airfield, where its Wing 7 is based.

Reaching Koh Samui, Koh Phangan and Koh Tao from Surat Thani Airport

A combined bus and boat service runs from the airport to Koh Samui, Koh Phangan and Koh Tao, going by road to Donsak Pier and by ferry from there. Tickets covering the whole journey are sold at the airport itself. Two ferry companies describe the connection on their own sites, and both of those sites are in Thai.

Seatran Ferry lists Surat Thani Airport among the places a journey can start from, with an airport shuttle onto its Donsak ferries for Nathon and Bang Rak on Koh Samui, Thong Sala on Koh Phangan and Mae Haad on Koh Tao. Raja Ferry names the airport as a pickup point for its combined bus and ferry tickets, crossing from Donsak to Lipa Noi on Koh Samui and Thong Sala on Koh Phangan.

Lomprayah, another operator on these crossings, is a separate case. Its own site would not open for us, and travel sites place its boats at Tapee Pier in the town, not at the Donsak crossing. Check which pier your ticket uses before you build a connection around it.

Getting to Koh Samui this way runs to several hours end to end, which is a different proposition from a direct flight onto the island.

Surat Thani Airport or Koh Samui Airport

Koh Samui Airport puts you on the island with no boat involved, and it is flown almost entirely by Bangkok Airways. Surat Thani puts you on the mainland, with the five airlines listed below and a bus and a ferry still ahead of you.

The island end of that choice is covered elsewhere on this site. The Koh Samui destination guide covers the island, and the Koh Samui flights guide covers what flies there. Schedule pages for the direct route run Bangkok to Koh Samui and Koh Samui to Bangkok.

Which airlines fly to Surat Thani Airport

Five airlines carry Surat Thani in their route information.

Airline	Flies to Surat Thani from
Thai AirAsia	Bangkok Don Mueang, Chiang Mai, and Bangkok Suvarnabhumi when that route is running
Nok Air	Bangkok Don Mueang
Thai Lion Air	Bangkok Don Mueang
Thai Vietjet Air	Bangkok Suvarnabhumi
EZY Airlines	Hat Yai

Thai AirAsia's Suvarnabhumi service here is suspended as this is written. It pulled its whole Suvarnabhumi domestic operation from 15 July 2026, moved those flights to Don Mueang and gave 1 October 2026 as the return date.

AirAsia's own newsroom announced the Suvarnabhumi route on 3 July 2025. The four Bangkok and Chiang Mai carriers above each show their Surat Thani route on their own site. EZY Airlines is the exception: its Hat Yai service rests on news coverage, and the airline's own site did not show a route list on the page we reached.

That Hat Yai route opened on 17 October 2025. Reporting dated 25 August 2026, about parking charges grounding EZY Airlines flights in the north of the country, described the airline's southern operations as unaffected.

The airport's name carries the word International, and the services above are domestic. If an international flight out of Surat Thani is part of your plan, confirm it on the airline's own site before you book the rest of the trip around it.

This site holds schedule pages for two of those airport pairs, Bangkok to Surat Thani and Chiang Mai to Surat Thani, with the return legs at Surat Thani to Bangkok and Surat Thani to Chiang Mai. The airport's own network is wider than those two pairs.

Passenger numbers at Surat Thani Airport

Yearly totals compiled on a general reference source put the busiest year listed at 2017, with 2,247,344 passengers. The later years shown are smaller, at 1,864,997 in 2019 and 1,516,470 given for 2025.

Rounded figures of about two million a year circulate for this airport, and the recent totals above sit below that. Check which year any such number is describing before you rely on it.

The apron, taxiway and terminal work

The airside half of the recent building work is on the official record. An aeronautical information supplement from the Civil Aviation Authority of Thailand (CAAT) brought a new apron with 21 aircraft parking stands, and a new taxiway called Taxiway M connecting to Runway 04/22, into effect on 11 July 2024.

The terminal is the less settled half. Trade coverage in May 2023 described the building growing from about 8,474 square metres to 25,520, with more check-in counters, aerobridges and baggage handling, and put the work at more than 90 per cent complete. That description belongs to 2023, not to today.

Accounts of whether the terminal project as a whole is finished do not agree with each other. The capacity it is meant to reach is given as 3.6 million passengers a year in two places and 3.5 million in a third.

Hiring a car at Surat Thani Airport

The airport is about 21 km west of the city centre. Budget lists a rental counter here on its own Thailand site. Other rental names appear in third-party listings for the airport, so check with the firm you intend to use rather than relying on one of those lists.

What there is to do once you are away from the airport is covered in the Surat Thani destination guide.