Phuket Flights

This dinky little airport, at the northern end of the island, serves both domestic and international flights. The runway is relatively short, so the traffic is mostly short-haul, although Thai manage to fly in 777s from Bangkok. The terminal is pretty small, but looks like it's been recently refurbished.

There's a transportation desk which has fixed price taxi services to various destinations on the island - I think I paid somewhere around 500 baht for the 30km to Patong. You should also be able to get a hire car here.

There are a few shops and restaurants at the airport, both before and after check-in - so if you have a little time to wait before catching your flight on your way out, you'll have something to do. However, just as at Bangkok airport, the shops seem to be pretty expensive, so it's better to buy your souvenirs before you get there if you can.

If you are going to Phuket, but bypassing Bangkok, then I would suggest that you fly direct with Jetstar. As far as I am aware, Jetstar is the only airline that flies direct from Sydney to Phuket. I think Virgin Blue do a direct service, but it leaves from Brisbane.

Flying with Jetstar is marginally cheaper than other alternatives that will also involve a stopover, and therefore you flying time is much much longer. Direct flight from Sydney to Phuket takes about 9 hours.

The only downside with flying Jetstar is that you have to pay for anything you want on board, even things like pillows, blankets and headphones!!! And .... if you want to hire out a portable dvd machine, you have to pre-book it, as well as if you want a hot meal, you also need to pre-book that!!! We were NOT aware of this before flying with Jetstar. There are indeed meal alternatives on board for you to buy, but usually only cold meals and snacks and drinks and they do indeed come with a hefty pricetag!!! Flying to Phuket I bought a chicken wrap, small pringles and 2 drinks and it came to about $30!!!! I would advise you to take your own food on board the plane. We were not aware if we could do that on our flight to Phuket, but it does appear there are no issues with you taking your own food and drink on board the plane.

SAVE MONEY AND TAKE YOUR OWN FOOD, SNACKS AND DRINKS ON BOARD YOUR JETSTAR FLIGHT!!

NEW RESTRICTIONS - WHAT YOU CAN CARRY ON BOARD

Find out about all the latest information on the new security restrictions and how they will affect you (especially if you want to buy duty free overseas and bring back to Australia)..

Australia
http://www.infrastructure.gov.au/transport/security/aviation/LAG/index.aspx

Changi Airport http://www.changiairport.com/changi/en/airport_guide/departure/safety_n_security/travel_advisory.html

Singapore Airlines
http://www.singaporeair.com/saa/en_UK/content/before/plan/CountrySpecificBaggageRestrictions.jsp?

Thai Airways
http://www.thaiairways.com.au/thai_special_offers_desc.asp?special_cat=What's%20New&id=118

Hong Kong - Cathay Pacific
http://www.cathaypacific.com/cpa/en_INTL/helpingyoutravel/lagrestrictions

Garuda
http://www.garuda-indonesia.com/index.php?menu=news&opt=detail&id=18

Jetstar
http://www.jetstar.com/flyingwithus/at-the-airport.html#brau

There has been a lot of discussion as to which is more beneficial, booking holidays online or going through a travel agent.

I can only comment on what we have always done with our numerous trips to Asia.

Before we start getting quotes we decide on what airline we want to use and the hotels we are going to stay in. We never ask for quotes on transfers or breakfast unless they are included for free.

Then I start looking online for approximate airfare and hotel costs.
As we travel every year I also taken into account what the previous years airfares etc were, so already I have a rough figure in my head of what I am prepared to pay.

After that I contact travel agents for quotes. If they come up with a dearer airfare than what I have found online, I tell them I can book it cheaper online, we have never had Flight Centre or Escape Travel be more expensive than we could book online.

An example was in 2006 we traveled from Adelaide Australia to Kuala Lumpur for 3 nights, then onto Phnom Penh and Siem Reap for 13 nights, back to KL for an overnighter and onto Phuket for 14 nights.

So the holiday was for 31 nights, we paid $2,100 and this included all airfares, taxes and hotels for 21 nights - free transfers were included for KL and Phuket.

No where online could I get it for this price from Escape Travel.

In 2007 we went from Adelaide to Kuala Lumpur - 2 nights, then Phnom Penh for 8 nights, and onto Phuket for 2 months. We paid $1,700 each. This covered all airfares with Malaysia Airlines & Thai Airways, 2 nights hotel in KL with lunch and dinner plus transfers.

So my advise is to really research your holiday, if you think you have found a great price online, then go to Flight Centre or Escape Travel, they have always come through for us. If they don't, simple, book the holiday online yourself, just check every avenue first.

The other thing you can save money on is your insurance.

We have always gone through Defence Travel or Vero Insurance (through Westpac Bank) they are significantly cheaper than Covermore which is through the travel agents and the policies are as good eg, unlimited medical etc.

However for the trip we have just booked our travel agent asked us to bring in the policy from Vero so she could send it to Covermore and see if they would match the price. (The Vero policy was a few hundred dollars cheaper than Covermore - we are going to be away for nearly two and a half months)

Well surprise, surprise, Covermore will match the price of Vero and no wonder as both of the policies are issued by Vero to start with.

The money is better in my pocket especially since the policies are the same.

There are many more useful links and tips here.

Ed, If I understand you question correctly, normally no, you would fly into Bangkok first then onto Phuket, which may require you to spend a night in Bangkok before you go onto Phuket. However, you can fly out of Clark in the Phillippines on Asia air or Tigerairways I think also flies out of there into either KL or Singapore, then direct into Phuket. Usually the direct route from Manila into Bangkok is more expensive by a couple hundred dollars. There is really no easy direct way into Phuket without stopping off somewhere.
Not sure about hostels but plenty of budget and upscale hotels all along the beach. If you compare the Phillippines with Thailand and the beach areas, well in my opinion, there is no comparison. Thailand knows how to do it right and the Phillippines does not, in every aspect, from transpo to accomodations and food. That's not to say that Pi can't be fun, but it is just harder to do and in the same amount o f time for the same amount of $$. Spend more time in Thailand, for sure!!
Have Fun!

Don't ever book a flight with One-Two-Go Airline or Orient Thai! I booked a flight 4 months before my scheduled trip. Two months later, they emailed me that my flight has been moved to a later flight for my trip going back to Bangkok. It caused a problem with me since I was scheduled to fly back to the Philippines 2 hrs after the rescheduled flight. Since there was nothing I can do, I just made the necessary arrangements. Now, 2 weeks before my scheduled flight, they email me again to say that my flight has been canceled and they will just do a refund. WTF!!! I booked my flight many months before so I can get a cheaper price and now I have to book again with another airline worth twice the amount I will be refunded with the useless one-two-go airline. All they could offer was there apology that can't help me book a flight and get me the money that I lack. Tsk tsk tsk.

NEVER again will I book with that airline again, and if I were you, don't make the same mistake I did.

- cathy -
www.shutterblahg.com
www.moi-blahg.com

Located in the north side of the island and about 1 hour from Phuket town Phuket airport is served by many international and domestic carriers. It is the second (after Bangkok) busiest airport in Thailand

4 more images

We took Tigerairways which departs from the Budget Terminal in the early mornings. Ticket was priced at S$150 each for a return trip with taxes included.

We don’t mind taking the budget airlines especially when the flight is less than 2 hours.

We were glad that we no longer need to pay the THB500 airport departure tax as it is now inclusive in the air fares.

If you need visa on arrival, join the queue and pay THB1,000 for the visa.

We left at 11.45am, to arrive at the airport at the required time before our 1.55pm flight, so with the packing and travelling we did not eat lunch. The food in the Phuket Business Lounge consists only of awful sandwiches and pastries, so we did not eat anything there, thinking we would be offered food on the plane. All we were offered was the dry mango pastry shown. The flight was short, but we could have been offered something decent to eat. Neither Steve or I ate it.

We sat in the lounge at BKK and tried to find something to eat as we were very hungry, but the food again was pastry or awful sandwiches. I can't eat much pastry as it upsets my stomach, apart from being unhealthy. We made do with carrot & celery. Another couple came to sit with us as there were no seats left. They were from Switzerland and were also very unhappy about TA.

The BKK-Perth flight was far better. We decided to watch the featured movie, but it wasn't on. We then decided to watch Miss Congeniality 2, but reception was so bad we couldn't view it. The Flight Mgr had been told about our problems by one of the staff. He asked why we weren't watching anything and we showed him the problem. He fixed and restarted the movie so we could watch it.

We got into the Perth terminal at around 7am, very tired and eager to get home after flying all night. We waited for 40mins for our "Priority" luggage. Only one case arrived and was not tagged with priority tags. We then had to go through the process of reporting lost luggage. We were at the airport for 1hr. We were extremely unhappy as toiletries, phone chargers etc were in that case. We eventually got it back the following day.

After being totally ignored on my first letter of complaint, I again took it up with TA in Perth, as they'd also refused to hand over my points to the Star Alliance, as we'd thought, so we lost 11,000 miles each. I did get a very patronising response, but of course, no kind of reparations.
We will never fly Thai Airways again.