Is a Koh Phangan airport actually coming? The abandoned Kan Air project and what it means for buyers in 2026

Will Koh Phangan get its own airport? As of 2026, no — the one attempt sits abandoned, and nothing in the public record points to a revival. It is worth knowing the actual history, because the project still shows up in older listings, forum threads and secondhand claims that it is 'coming soon.'

What was actually built

• Developer — Kan Air, a Thai domestic airline, began construction in 2012 on a site intended to connect Phangan to Koh Samui, Koh Tao and the mainland.
• Specification — a single 1,100-metre runway sized for ATR 72-class turboprops, with a terminal planned for roughly 1,000 passengers a day.
• Investment — an initial budget in the hundreds of millions of baht grew to roughly ฿2 billion by 2016, with Kan Air seeking a further ฿1.5 billion in financing to complete it.
• Original target — completion by 2014. That date was missed before the project stalled entirely.

What stopped it

In 2015, Surat Thani provincial authorities ordered construction halted after finding that the site had encroached on Than Sadet-Koh Phangan National Park land — reported estimates of the affected area vary across contemporary accounts (from roughly 20 to over 40 rai), reflecting how the story was covered at the time rather than a single confirmed figure. Thailand's Forest Protection Unit subsequently filed a complaint over the illegal clearing. Kan Air continued to seek financing through 2016, suspended operations altogether in 2017, and no Thai aviation authority, the airline, or credible news outlet has reported any construction activity, funding round or regulatory filing since. The site remains an abandoned, uncompleted runway on protected land.

Why it hasn't restarted

Two separate problems would each need solving before the project could resume, and neither shows signs of movement: the legal one — the runway sits partly on national park land, which Thai law does not allow to be simply re-designated for private commercial use — and the financial one, a project that was already ฿1.5 billion short of completion in 2016 with no announced investor since. There is no CAAT (Civil Aviation Authority of Thailand) type-certification process, no Ministry of Transport announcement and no successor developer on record for a Koh Phangan airport as of 2026.

What's actually moving on connectivity instead

Buyers weighing future accessibility should look at the projects genuinely in motion rather than the dormant airport: the Samui sea bridge and expressway, a ฿74-billion mainland-to-Samui link still at the feasibility stage with no construction start before 2028-2029, and the proposed EH216-S electric air-taxi service, which is real but not yet certified or operating. Both are unbuilt too, but both have active sponsors and public planning documents — a materially different status from the airport, which has neither.

What it means for a buyer today

• Don't price a fixed-wing airport into a purchase decision. There is no funded project, no timeline and no sign one will resume; treat any claim otherwise as unverified.
• Today's access is what it has been for years — ferry from Koh Samui, Koh Tao or Surat Thani's Donsak pier, with Samui's airport (a 30-45 minute boat-plus-transfer away) the nearest air link.
• A plot near the Than Sadet-Koh Phangan National Park boundary carries its own, separate due-diligence question — not airport risk, but the same forest-reserve and park-boundary checks that apply to any hillside or jungle-adjacent parcel on the island; see illegal hillside and forest-reserve construction for how to verify a plot doesn't sit inside protected land.
• If connectivity is a real factor in your decision, weight it toward what's actually funded and moving — the sea bridge and the air-taxi proposal — rather than a project that has been dormant since 2017.