Phi Phi - Phuket and potentially missing my flight..

[Big fish63]

It's just dawned on me that my journey back to Phuket from Phi Phi may be too rushed and i could risk missing my flight (to Kl/Tawau)..

i have a flight at 1330 to catch from Phuket on the 26th Dec at 1330 only problem is that morning i will still be on phi phi.. So i'm thinking i need to be at the airport at 11.30 to catch the flight (Airasia)? Takes 1 hour to get there so have to be at the pier at 1030. Is there a 0800 ferry or earlier?

I can't miss my flight to KL as i have a couple of other flights as i travel over to Sipadan.

ahhhhhh

 

[Quero]

AFAIK the earliest ferry out of Phi Phi to Phuket departs at 9 and arrives at Phuket City at about 11. The taxi ride from the pier to the airport is about half an hour. With luck you can make it.

 

[stevenl]

Many, many road works going on at the moment, so the ride to the airport will probably take more like one hour than the mentioned 1/2 hour, maybe even longer.

You might make it, I would recommend to stay on Phuket the evening beforehand.

 

[Quero]

I just came from the airport today, minutes ago in fact. There's only construction at one key place, and that place is not on the route between Rassada Pier (where the 9 a.m. ferry docks) and the airport. Furthermore, the northbound traffic at the construction site wasn't much affected since all traffic lanes are currently open, and the southbound traffic, which does have a closed lane, was slower (at 11:00), but not terribly backed up. I came from the airport at about the same time the OP will be going there, and traffic was smooth with no tie ups.

Having said all that, yes, the surest option is to stay over on Phuket. For my journey today, the weather was clear, roads were dry, and there were no accidents along the way, so conditions were ideal. When they're less than ideal, it can slow down a bit. Outbound to the airport on Tuesday (a day and a half ago), at rush hour and in the rain, from Rawai (further south than Phuket City), rather than taking the usual 45 minutes to get to the airport it took me 1 hour 5 minutes.

 

[stevenl]

Many people are avoiding the Central intersection by taking the other route to the airport, so there is much more traffic now on the road the OP has to go. This morning there were no hold ups at that intersection because there was a big accident on Chao Fa road, leading to 1,5 hours of stopped traffic there.

 

[Quero]

I heard about that accident. Very sad. It was an awful crash, with a little schoolgirl having lost her life, but it was reportedly near Chalong Temple, quite a long way from the construction zone and not on any road leading from Rassada Pier to the airport, and thus doesn't seem to have been related to that particular traffic bottleneck at all, though just about any major wreck here ties traffic up regardless of where it occurs.

At any rate, the route from Rassada Pier to the airport is not directly impacted by the closed lanes for the roadworks or the detour to avoid the area as it follows different roads, though the traffic load on secondary roads is bound to be a little heavier whenever there's any tie up close by.

Anyway, I wouldn't personally want to rush like that, trying to get from Phi Phi to the airport in one morning and if it were me, I'd surely stay overnight on Phuket, but I consider that it's up to the OP whether he wants to do so since I'm not a big fan of forcing my own preferred solution on others--I think it's better to just give people objective information and let them make their own choices.

So here's simple, objective information not coloured by subjective preference: if conditions are good, with dry roads, no accidents, and it's not rush hour (and 11:00 a.m. is not rush hour), factoring in congestion on secondary roads spilling back from the construction nearly 10 km away, it should take about 40-45 minutes to travel from Rassada Pier to the airport.

 

[stevenl]

Sorry Quero, but not true. There is no way in regular circumstances somebody can safely make that trip in 1/2 hour, and at the moment is much busier, with, even though you deny that, the road from Rassada to airport a detour for many people from Chalong and Rawai going direction airport.

You're simply sticking to your guns here, even though you know what you're writing can not be done.

So yes, objective and truthful information should be good.

 

[Quero]

Sure, I'm sticking to my information. All that's needed is to look at a map.

if conditions are good, with dry roads, no accidents, and it's not rush hour (and 11:00 a.m. is not rush hour), factoring in congestion on secondary roads spilling back from the construction nearly 10 km away, it should take about 40-45 minutes to travel from Rassada Pier to the airport.

But anyway, let the OP decide. It doesn't make any difference to me whether you agree with the maps or not, stevenl.

(BTW, for anybody who does want to check a map, according to the information I've seen, the recommended detour for southbound traffic around the construction leads along Yaowarat Road from the TESCO Lotus intersection on the By-Pass Road, with a couple of zig-zags through Phuket City, and joining up with Chao Fa East Road--it's only for southbound traffic since there are no lane closures or detours for northbound traffic yet, which is the direction from Rassada to the airport. The northbound route from the pier to the airport would typically follow Damrong Road and then Thep Kasatri Road. Different roads from those involved in the detour. Vehicles northbound for the airport that reroute to avoid the construction--when northbound lanes at the construction site are eventually closed--will likely continue to through Phuket City to Thep Kassatri Road, thus increasing the traffic load on the through roads in Phuket City and on Thep Kassatri Road itself, but that traffic will represent a very small percentage of the vehicles that will be using the detour.)

 

[stevenl]

Sure, I'm sticking to my information. All that's needed is to look at a map. But anyway, let the OP decide. It doesn't make any difference to me whether you agree with the maps or not, stevenl.

So you already changed from 30 minutes to 45 minutes. Drive it an you'll change again. And that has nothing to do with me disagreeing with maps, only with me correcting misinformation.

 

[Quero]

So you already changed from 30 minutes to 45 minutes. Drive it an you'll change again. And that has nothing to do with me disagreeing with maps, only with me correcting misinformation.

No, I was trying to throw you a bone by factoring in some phantom time for a phantom delay due to a construction site that's somewhere else on an entirely different route.

In reality, any random taxi driver will make the trip in about half an hour unless there are complicating factors such as an accident, rush-hour traffic, or flooded roads. But just as a conciliatory measure, I assumed the possibility that the taxi could potentially drive slower than most actually do, or that the OP will take a few minutes to find a taxi at the pier, or whatever.

I just don't care about your mission to "correct" everybody.