GCC Travel: Kuwait Airways Opens Nonstop Flights From Kuwait to Phuket

GCC travel to Southeast Asia took another step forward on October 27, 2026. Kuwait Airways flight KU407 touched down at Phuket International Airport at 2:55 p.m., where the Tourism Authority of Thailand welcomed passengers and crew with commemorative gifts. It was the first scheduled nonstop flight between Kuwait and Phuket, and it marks a new beach destination for Kuwait's national airline.

The new route joins Kuwait Airways' six weekly flights to Bangkok, giving the airline eight flights a week to Thailand. It is flown by the Airbus A330-900neo, with 278 seats.

The figures from the Tourism Authority of Thailand explain the route. Between January 1 and October 20, 2026, Thailand welcomed 48,049 visitors from Kuwait, and the full-year number is projected at about 55,300. Kuwaiti travelers stay a long time, an average of a little over 13 nights, and they travel mostly for leisure, more than a third of them with family. Phuket is already their favorite destination in the country, chosen by about 35 percent of Kuwaiti visitors, ahead of Krabi.

The tourism authority also reports that the average Kuwaiti visitor spends about 96,590 baht per trip, that leisure accounts for almost 84 percent of visits, and that Krabi, across the bay from Phuket, attracts about 11 percent of Kuwaiti travelers. With 278 seats on each flight, the new route adds 556 seats a week into Phuket, a welcome boost for the island's hotels, restaurants and boat operators.

The timing suits the season. The northern winter is Phuket's high season on the Andaman coast, and the planned increase to four flights a week runs through the heart of it, across the December holidays and into early February.