Old Thai airport reopens as new facility is not a runway success
By Amy Kazmin in Bangkok
Published: March 24 2007 02:00 | Last updated: March 24 2007 02:00
In a massive operation executed with military precision, Thai soldiers, aviation officials and airline industry executives last September moved tons of equipment from Bangkok's old international airport to the $3.8bn Suvarnabhumi airport, a massive, futuristic glass and steel structure touted as the "Pride of Thailand".
With the launch of the gleaming new facility, the doughty-but-functional Don Muang airport was virtually abandoned, a relic of an era when Thailand had humbler, less grandiose ambitions.
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Yet it turns out the sentimental farewells were premature. In the passenger terminal at Don Muang yesterday, teams of cleaners, construction workers, aviation officials and airline staff were hard at work - reinstalling furniture, testing flight announcement boards and restocking abandoned gift shops - as they geared up to get back to business.
From tomorrow, the roar of aircraft and the clamour of travellers will again echo through the old airport, as Thai Airways, the national flag carrier, and two budget airlines shift some of their domestic flights back to Don Muang, which they say proved to be more efficient than the new airport.
Officially, the government is reopening the old airport to ease congestion at Suvarnabhumi, which is already operating near capacity just six months after its much-trumpeted opening. "Suvar-nabhumi airport reached capacity sooner than we expected," Chupan Prapanpote, an Airports of Thailand official, said. "Besides, we have this facility - why should we leave it unused?"
But some low-cost carriers, which had tried to resist the initial move to Suvarna-bhumi, are delighted to shift flights back to the tried and tested old facility. "We feel we can have higher efficiency in a number of aspects at Don Muang," says Kriangsak Tangvichitsagul, the assistant to the chairman of One-Two-Go, a Thai low-fare carrier.
Despite the massive ex-pense of its construction, Suvarnabhumi - a pet pro-ject of Thaksin Shinawatra, the prime minister ousted in a coup just nine days before the airport opened - was built to accommodate just 45m passengers, scarcely more than the 38m the old airport could handle.
The explosive growth of low-cost carriers and apparent design problems have meant that both check-in and reception areas at Suv-arnabhumi are packed with passengers. Signs with flight information are few and far between, which some blame for causing flight delays owing to missing passengers.
At the same time, the airport's huge scale means long turnround times, as aircraft sometimes have to taxi for up to 20 minutes after landing.
Initially, Don Muang will serve about 140 inbound and outbound domestic flights a day, including some Thai Airways routes, all daily flights of its low-fare subsidiary Nok Air, and most One-Two-Go flights.
Low-fare Thai AirAsia, which flies both domestically and internationally, will remain at Suvarna-bhumi. But aviation authorities plan to reassess the situation in six months, when they could reopen Don Muang for international fights as well.
Meanwhile, Suvarnabhumi and its flaws are still attracting ire. Airport authorities this week invalidated contracts awarded to King Power International to operate duty free shops, saying they were illegal and the retail space had far exceeded what was permitted.
International carriers are also unhappy with plans by Airports of Thailand sharply to raise fees. "The increased charges are unreasonable, especially given the operational deficiencies at the airport," says Albert Tjoeng, a spokesman for the International Air Transport Association, which represents airlines. "Airlines are not getting value for money."
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007
Thank so much for information.
Posted by: ThailandSEO Inc. | February 21, 2008 at 05:01 PM
Bonjour,
Est-ce que le nouvel aéroport de Bangkok est ouvert maintenant ?
Merci
Posted by: Gilles Allard | July 30, 2007 at 07:02 AM