Dubai-based airline flydubai has doubled its flights to Thailand’s Krabi and Pattaya (U-Tapao) to twice-daily, with both destinations launching in January 2023. Flydubai is partnering with Emirates for the flights. Krabi was briefly served by flydubai via Myanmar in 2019 and 2020. Flydubai’s decision to increase flights is an indication that it is happy with forward bookings, and confident in the continued performance of both destinations. Krabi was launched as a destination to cater to the approximately 320,000 people who travelled there from Europe and the Middle East in 2019, while flydubai is the only airline running a route between the Middle East and Pattaya. The initial results for both routes, which started operation in January, showed flydubai had about 9,296 roundtrip seats for sale on both routes in February and it carried an estimated 7,300 passengers to/from Krabi (79% seat load factor) and 8,300 to/from Pattaya (90%). Around 30% of Krabi passengers were point-to-point travellers and 46% of Pattaya passengers did not transit, with the remainder making use of the transit market. Approximately 70% of Krabi passengers transited over Dubai, with Romania the most popular market, and 54% to/from Pattaya, with Russia in the number-one spot. Flydubai and Emirates will offer a total of 11 daily departures from Dubai to Thailand this November-December.