Market notes
On chartering from Phuket
Phuket changed category recently. For years it was a place private aircraft flew to, dropped passengers at a busy international terminal and left, because there was nowhere sensible to put them. The Siam Land Private Jet Terminal at Mai Khao ended that. It is a 1,200 sq m building on a 17 rai site with about 7,000 sq m of hangar space and a 12,000 sq m apron that can park up to seven G650s plus a BBJ or ACJ, with immigration, customs and disease control handled on site and all-electric ground support equipment.
The airport underneath it is straightforward: one runway, 09/27, at 3,000 m, 17,474,051 passengers and 106,585 aircraft movements in 2025. Three thousand metres covers everything in normal conditions, including ultra-long-range types arriving from Europe or the Gulf. The case to check with the operator is a maximum-fuel westbound departure in midday tropical heat, where performance margins tighten. Arriving is never the issue.
Geography matters more here than at most destinations. The airport is at the northern end of the island, 32 km from Phuket town. That puts it 10 to 25 minutes from Mai Khao, Bang Tao and Layan, where most of the newer villa and resort development sits, around 45 minutes from Patong and 45 to 60 minutes from Kata and Rawai in the south. Choosing where to stay effectively chooses how long the transfer takes.
The seasonal pattern drives everything commercially. High season runs November to April and peaks hard over Christmas, New Year and Chinese New Year, when apron parking rather than aircraft supply is the limiting factor. It also makes Phuket one of the better empty-leg markets in Asia, because aircraft that deliver a family for a two week stay have no reason to sit on the ramp. Bangkok, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Hong Kong and Dubai are the corridors where those legs surface most often.
