Call to close Bangkok’s new airport as problems mount

BTN Archive Stories Issue #26

Friday, 15 December 2006

After a succession of delays, Bangkok’s new international Suvarnabhumi Airport opened for business on September 28. When I passed through a week later, I found several aspects of my experience disconcerting. 

More serious, however, this month’s report by an official panel, appointed by the Council for National Security (CNS), has also expressed concern over a range of matters, including safety.

Chalit Phukphasuk, the committee chairman and air force chief, is quoted in Thai press reports as saying safety and noise issues prompted the panel to urge delaying the airport’s official inauguration, which was expected this month.
“There is a load of problems to be fixed. The airport will not be ready for the official opening for six months,” he said. “Since His Majesty the King will preside over the opening, it is imperative that everything is ready.”

Long waits for luggage, hold-ups at check-in counters, roof leaks and inadequate toilets were highlighted the early days of operations.

But later, uneven and cracked taxiways and parking bays were found at the airport, according to Thai reports, with the airport’s plan to close one of its two runways for four hours every night raising suspicion that it has something to do with cracks rather than noise issues.

Suvarnabhumi was a much-touted project of the deposed Thaksin administration, and  there are strong suggestions in Thailand of corruption in a number of aspects of its development.

When I landed there, Bangkok, typically for time of year, was overcast, hot and steamy, so condensation formed on the windows the moment we began to taxi, obscuring details of the wavy, shell like structures and glass fronted arches of the terminal, leaving only an overall feeling of immense size.

Inside, the initial impression was that Suvarnabhumi is similar to a string of modern airports (think KL or Pudong), in that it is a cavernous place, all chrome and stainless steel and glass, exposed girders and tubing.
Signage generally was easy to follow, immigration and customs straightforward and quick, while exiting into the waiting crowd remains a case of confronting a sea of faces and greeters holding up names, with no great room to move once you clear to the back. 

According to the signage there are three arrival exits, A, B and C, but there is no notification on arrivals boards that I could see as to which of these will be used by disembarking passengers.

Plenty of people were approaching and offering taxi, bus and hotel services, hard to tell authorised agents from touts, with many wearing the official-looking yellow tee-shirts which are merely a commemorative design in the King’s colour to mark 60 years of his reign.

Car rental desks are handy, with well controlled lines of public taxis on the ground floor level, express airport buses running to four different downtown destinations (www.airportexpressthai.com) for 150 baht, and seven public bus routes.  But a dedicated airport rail link will not be completed until 2008.

Suvarnabhumi has four main levels, one each for arrivals and departures, with two narrower mezzanine type-floors with food outlets, book stores, forex and ATM’s, shops, offices, massage and lounge facilities.  Domestic terminals and Thai Airways upper class facilities are located at the left hand end of the terminal, the end at which you arrive from the city.

My departure experience began with four lanes of traffic already shunting and manoeuvring for a stopping place to unload passengers and luggage.

Inside, the whole place was a hub of noise, voices dissipating into open spaces, escalators and travelators spinning off like roller coasters, people with large luggage trolleys battling lifts that at best can only take three or four at a time.

Departure boards are quite small and flick back and forth between Thai and English very quickly.

Whether it was just that everyone and his dog was coming to sticky-beak at the new airport while seeing off friends or not, the fact is that the main economy check-in area was very crowded, to the extent that passengers could not find the end of queues which were forming well before the ribbon-controlled area.  

Despite the fact that check-in and baggage handling seemed to be working with normal efficiency, it took almost 90 minutes for me to get airside (although I was 50 baht short for the 500 baht airport tax and had to divert to an ATM.)  On top of this there was another 20-minute 50-metre queue for the security check to reach the gate lounge at Concourse C, another spot where everything appeared to be working normally and to capacity.

Naturally, airside had all the facilities that you would assume to be there, and in great numbers. But, as with landside, what surprised me, given that this airport is designed to handle 45 million passengers and 76 flights an hour in its initial development, how crowded everything already seemed to be.
— Alistair Smith