European tourists stranded in Thailand are still waiting to fly home a day after the airport blockades came to an end.

The airport sieges, which were lifted on Wednesday by anti-government protesters, left more than 300,000 travellers stranded.

Thai arline officials have been reassuring passengers and issued a statement saying Bangkok's Suvarnabhumi International Airport is due to be "open for full services including check-in and immigration" on Friday morning.

It is now up to the airlines to resume operations from Suvarnabhumi, which was shut after anti-government protesters swarmed the facility on November 25.

The airport chief said many airlines such as Thai Airways, Bangkok Airways, Singapore Airlines, China Airlines and Japan Airlines have already asked to start flying out of Suvarnabhumi.

The requests total 101 passenger and cargo flights, of which 65 are inbound and 36 outbound. Normally, the airport operates 600 to 700 flights a day.

For now, most airlines are operating out of U-Tapao naval base in eastern Thailand to take stranded passengers out.

Stranded Thai Airways passengers are waiting at a temporary check-in terminal set up at the BITEC Convention Centre in downtown Bangkok.

British Airways has set up a temporary check-in facility at a Bangkok hotel to accommodate some of its stranded passengers on a special flight. It will also carry Qantas passengers and is scheduled to leave Phuket early Friday morning.

About 150 passengers will be on the flight to London - the fifth such flight operated by British Airways and Qantas since the takeover of Suvarnabhumi airport.

In Suvarnabhumi - where an international flight has already left for Sydney, Australia - tourists are waiting around in the airport terminal, hoping to catch a flight home.

Meanwhile, Thailand's battered political parties are attempting to come up with a permanent candidate to replace the ousted prime minister.

On Wednesday they endorsed deputy prime minister Chaowarat Chandeerakul as caretaker leader.

But the People's Alliance for Democracy, which led six months of anti-government protests and seized the airports, has warned that it will resume its demonstrations should a candidate close to exiled former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra be put forward.

© Independent Television News Limited 2009. All rights reserved.