The advantage of the Gripen isn't that it's cheap. The F-16 is cheaper.

But Gripen has Meteor and can fly really well. Now, I'm a Swede, but there are claims of practical experiments in Norway trying out old some Gripen planes vs F-15C and F-16 have shown that the Gripen is simply better at air-to-air stuff.

The F-16 is obviously bigger though, so if you want to bomb somebody a lot and whoever that is doesn't have anything to put up against it then maybe it's reasonable to get one of those instead, but I don't think that's a problem Thailand has. I think they want an air force that can challenge another air force if required.

It's also nice since one can actually fly with it without breaking the bank.