The decision by anti-government protesters to lift their siege of Thailand’s two busiest airports will come as a relief to the 250,000 tourists struggling to leave the country.

Suvarnabhumi airport had handled more than 100,000 travellers a day until the yellow-shirted protesters shut down the gleaming glass-and-steel structure. Its temporary replacement as the route out of the “land of smiles” was U-Tapao, a Vietnam war-era naval airbase with a single x-ray scanner and capacity for 400 people inside the terminal.