Thailand opened a new terminal at a Vietnam War-era airport, while the Indonesian capital’s international airport today opened a new terminal, both aimed at relieving overcapacity.

The new terminal at U-Tapao International Airport, 173 kilometres east of Bangkok, will be able to handle 3 million passengers per year, according to Airports of Thailand (AOT).

The opening aims to ease congestion at Bangkok’s Don Muang and Suvarnabhumi airports, which an internal audit found to be operating beyond their intended capacity, AOT said.

Don Muang handled 21.5 million passengers in 2014, far exceeding its recommended capacity of 16.5 million.

Suvarnabhumi, which has a recommended capacity of 45 million passengers, served 46.4 million passengers in 2014.

U-Tapao currently handles approximately 800,000 passengers per year, with most arriving on charter flights from Russia and China, AOT said.

The resort town of Pattaya is 40 kilometres away and is popular with tourists from those two nations.

U-Tapao airport was extended and modernised for the US Air Force during the Vietnam War.

B-52s bombers based at U-tapao joined major campaigns including the illegal bombing of Cambodia and Laos.

‘We want Terminal 3 to be an international hub’

The Soekarno-Hatta Airport’s Terminal 3 will serve domestic and international flights, Transport Minister Budi Karya Sumadi said.

“We want Terminal 3 to be an international transit hub,” Sumadi said.

The new terminal is designed to handle 25 million passengers a year, the minister said.

Flag-carrier Garuda Indonesia was the first airline to operate from the new terminal today.

The Jakarta airport, built in 1985, has been running at over capacity since the liberalisation of the airline industry in the early 2000s, serving about 62 million passengers a year.

It was designed to handle 22 million passengers.

The government of President Joko Widodo, who took office in 2014, has made improving the country’s dilapidated infrastructure a priority in a bid to attract investment and boost growth.

- dpa