Hat Yai International Airport — Hat Yai, Thailand

Southern Thailand's commercial hub relies on HDY to connect Hat Yai with Bangkok and with the cross-border traffic flowing up from Malaysia and Singapore, since the city's markets, seafood restaurants, and shopping streets have long attracted weekend visitors from just across the frontier. Songkhla Province, where the airport sits, blends rubber plantations and fishing industries with a service economy built partly around that steady stream of Malaysian tourists seeking a change of scenery a short flight or drive away. Budget carriers have expanded capacity here considerably in recent decades, turning what was once a smaller regional field into one of the busier airports outside Thailand's main tourist islands. Periodic security concerns tied to Thailand's southernmost provinces have at times affected travel patterns in the wider region, though Hat Yai itself sits somewhat apart from the more affected areas further south.