Chiang Mai Airport

Updated 19th Aug 2026

Departures from Chiang Mai Airport at a glance

• 82flights a day3rd busiest of 30 airports
• 10routes from here
• 6airlines
• 06:35 – 22:55first and last00061218

Collected between 7 August 2026 and 22 August 2026. Not live — check with the airline before booking.

Chiang Mai International Airport (CNX) is the main airport for northern Thailand, operated by Airports of Thailand (AOT) on a site owned by the Royal Thai Air Force. It is the fourth-busiest airport in the country.

Where Chiang Mai Airport is and when it is open

The airport is in Chiang Mai itself, a short drive from the city centre. It has one runway, 18/36, 3,400 m of asphalt, and it operates 24 hours a day, which it has done since April 2014.

AOT's figures record 9,517,206 passengers in 2025. The year before, 2024, the total was 9,082,071, of which 6,563,400 were domestic.

The terminals at Chiang Mai Airport

Domestic and international flights are handled in adjoining terminals. The airport calls them the International terminal and the Main Terminal in its own written directions, and those are the names used below.

The distinction matters for the transport counters. Shuttle bus enquiries are at the International terminal, Floor 1, in the arrival zone. The flat-fare taxi counter is at Entrance 1, Main Terminal, Floor 1, in the public area.

How do I get from Chiang Mai Airport to the city centre?

The airport lists five official categories of onward transport, and the ones a visitor actually reaches for are below. The drive into the centre typically takes 10 to 20 minutes, traffic depending. The shuttle routes and their fares are published on the airport's own shuttle bus page.

The city itself is covered in the Chiang Mai destination guide.

By airport shuttle bus (A1, A2 and A3)

The airport runs its own shuttle on three numbered routes, with a counter at the International terminal, Floor 1, in the arrival zone. Enquiries go to 094-843-3035. Each route is priced for the whole run, and the airport asks passengers to check the current fare and the route before travelling.

Route	Where it goes
A1	Nimmanhaemin Road, Huay Kaew Road and the City Moat
A2	Mahidol Road, the Night Bazaar and the hotels around Chang Klan Road
A3	The Second Ring Road and the 700th Anniversary Stadium

By airport taxi (the flat-fare counter)

Airport Taxi is the airport's own flat-rate service, arranged at a counter at Entrance 1, Main Terminal, Floor 1, in the public area. The contact number is 053-201-307.

The point of a flat rate is that the fare is settled at the counter before you set off, so it does not climb while you sit in traffic. The airport's Airport Taxi page carries no fare table by destination or zone, though, so you find out the number when you reach the counter and not before you land.

By metered taxi

A metered taxi from the airport carries an additional gratuity for the driver on top of whatever the meter reads. The amount is set by an announcement from the Ministry of Transport.

By city bus

City buses serve the airport on yellow and red lines, operating from 06:00 to 23:30. After 23:30 the airport is still open and the buses are not, which leaves a late arrival with fewer ways into the city.

By songthaew or tuk-tuk

Red songthaews, the shared passenger trucks, are listed by the airport among the services running into the city, and tuk-tuks are flagged down the same way. Reaching either means a walk out to the main road first.

By car rental

The car rental companies have their desks on the first floor.

Parking at Chiang Mai Airport

The car park the airport lists is a 10-storey building, open to the public 24 hours, and it appears on the airport's own facilities page. Pattaya Mail reported the opening ceremony on 28 September 2020, putting the building at 40,000 sq m with room for around 1,317 vehicles. The same report described automatic ticketing and barrier gates, and a display showing free spaces.

The airport's car park page carries no rate table. Confirm the rate on arrival, or with the airport on +66 53-922-000, before leaving a car for several days.

Where you can fly from Chiang Mai Airport

This site holds schedule pages for seven routes out of Chiang Mai, which is a shorter list than the airport's full network:

• Chiang Mai to Bangkok
• Chiang Mai to Phuket
• Chiang Mai to Krabi
• Chiang Mai to Hat Yai
• Chiang Mai to Surat Thani
• Chiang Mai to Udon Thani
• Chiang Mai to Pattaya

The return legs have their own pages, starting with Bangkok to Chiang Mai. Flights to and from the city are treated at more length in the Chiang Mai flights guide.

Does haze affect flights at Chiang Mai Airport?

It has. Biomass burning in the dry season usually runs from February to April and peaks in March, and on two occasions reported by the Bangkok Post the smoke was severe enough that arriving flights were turned back or diverted.

On 30 March 2019 a Spring Airlines arrival from Shanghai was rerouted to Suvarnabhumi Airport, which the paper described as the fourth flight rerouted that month. Four years earlier, on 16 March 2015, Thai Airways TG106 and Thai Lion Air SL8504 returned to Bangkok while Bangkok Airways PG241 and Thai AirAsia FD3161 diverted to Chiang Rai Airport, with visibility of 500 to 1,000 m in Mueang district.

Both of those were single days, four years apart, and how bad a burning season gets varies from one year to the next. The most recent account runs the other way: Nation Thailand reported in April 2026 that AEROTHAI, the air navigation service provider, said visibility in the 2026 season bottomed out at 1,200 m against the 800 m minimum for a Category 1 instrument landing, and that flights kept taking off and landing; that is one season, reported second hand. The airport's own website says nothing about haze either way, so nobody can tell you how often this happens.

Facilities at Chiang Mai Airport

What is open in the terminals turns over on the concession cycle, and it is worth checking on the day you travel. The airport switchboard is +66 53-922-000.