Don Mueang International Airport Guide (DMK)

By the bookingMentor Travel Desk · Updated October 22, 2026 · How we research

Don Mueang is the base for Thailand's low-cost airlines, so most visitors pass through on a cheap domestic hop or a regional flight. This guide covers the terminals, lounges, rest options, food, WiFi and every practical way into Bangkok.

Please note: Flights, hotels near the airport and car hire with driver on this page can be booked directly on bookingMentor. We list places on merit, and bookings never affect what we say about them.

What to expect

Don Mueang International Airport (DMK) sits about 24 km north of central Bangkok, alongside Vibhavadi Rangsit Road and the Don Mueang Tollway. It opened in 1914 as an air force base, served as Bangkok's main airport until Suvarnabhumi took over in 2006, and was brought back into service as the city's low-cost airport. Airports of Thailand (AOT) runs it on land owned by the Royal Thai Air Force, and it handled more than 30 million passengers in 2025.

There are two terminals joined by an indoor walkway: Terminal 1 for international flights and Terminal 2 for domestic flights. The airport is the home base of Thai AirAsia, Thai AirAsia X, Nok Air and Thai Lion Air, which between them fly to almost every provincial airport in Thailand and to China, India, Japan, Vietnam and much of Southeast Asia. Bangkok Airways, flydubai, Batik Air, Cebu Pacific and a handful of other foreign carriers also use it.

Don Mueang expansion, October 2026: AOT's Phase 3 development, which includes a new passenger terminal and a renovated Terminal 1, is intended to raise capacity from about 30 million to 50 million passengers a year. In May 2026 the budget was revised to about ฿69 billion and the Transport Ministry pressed AOT to take it to Cabinet and to tender; no construction start date has been confirmed. Day-to-day operations in Terminals 1 and 2 are unaffected for now.

Expect a busy, functional airport. Queues at check-in and immigration can be long in the morning and late evening peaks, and seating fills quickly. It is closer to the city than Suvarnabhumi, has a direct SRT Red Line station across a footbridge, and keeps a reasonable spread of food, pharmacies, ATMs and pay-in lounges open late, several of them around the clock.

One of Asia's oldest working airports

Don Mueang opened as a Royal Thai Air Force base on 27 March 1914, after the first flights there earlier that month, which places it among the oldest airports in Asia still in use. Between its two asphalt runways, 3,700 m and 3,500 m long, lies an air force golf course, where red lights hold golfers back when aircraft land.

When Suvarnabhumi opened in September 2006, Don Mueang closed to scheduled traffic. It reopened on 24 March 2007, and in March 2012 the government ordered low-cost, charter and non-connecting flights to move there, which ended the attempt to run Bangkok as a single-airport city. The great floods of late 2011 had already shut the airport when water covered the runways and knocked out the lighting; it reopened on 6 March 2012.

Traffic and the expansion under way

In 2025 Don Mueang handled 31,650,816 passengers, up 3.8 per cent: 19,407,387 domestic and 12,243,429 international. The terminals were built for about 30 million passengers a year, so the airport is running at or above its design capacity, which explains the crowds at peak times.

A 36.8 billion baht expansion is meant to lift capacity to 50 million. Its third phase began in the second half of 2023 and is due to finish between 2029 and 2031, with a new Terminal 3 for about 20 million passengers a year. The old Terminal 3 building has stood empty since 2011.

Landside and airside

Landside is the public part of each terminal before security, where check-in, the food courts, left luggage and the transport exits are. Airside is beyond security (and, in Terminal 1, immigration), where the gates and most lounges are. Once you pass international departure immigration in Terminal 1 you cannot come back out.