Suvarnabhumi Airport May Have to Be Partially Shut Down

[Gaybutton]

The following appears in the BANGKOK POST:

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New Airport Faces Partial Shutdown

 

Mistakes, Graft Found in Almost All Contracts

 

AMORNRAT MAHITTHIROOK

 

Poor construction at Suvarnabhumi may force parts of the new airport to be shut down for repairs. This would open the way for the recently abandoned Don Muang airport to be re-opened to serve Bangkok's air traffic needs.

 

Deputy Transport Minister Sansern Wongcha-um said yesterday that following a recent report on the problems facing Suvarnabhumi airport, it was likely that part of the new facility would have to be closed and Don Muang airport would pick up the slack.

 

Some people had suggested the airport, open less than three months, be completely closed for a revamp, with flights being redirected to Don Muang until the improvements are completed, Mr Sansern said. He was opposed to that. Trying to move everything back to Don Muang would cause chaos.

 

The Council for Democratic Reform _ now the Council for National Security _ asked about the readiness of Suvarnabhumi airport just after the Sept 19 coup, but executives of the Airports of Thailand (AoT) had insisted the airport was ready for the scheduled Sept 28 opening.

 

Opening the airport before it was completed had inevitably led to problems. If the opening had been delayed to allow work to be finished properly, the airport would have started on a more solid footing.

 

The new AoT board appointed after the coup has discovered physical and managerial problems at Suvarnabhumi airport.

 

Board member Yodyiam Theptranont, who heads a sub-panel investigating the problems, said the repairs would take a long time. He could not give a timeframe.

 

Mr Yodyiam's report to the AoT board outlined a lengthy list of complaints and deficiencies, along with a list of recommendations on fixing the problems.

 

The report attributed the faults to substandard construction, poor management and manipulation of designs and materials.

 

The report said the airport's information technology facilities were incomplete and the upper floors of the car park building have no drains, causing rain water to flow into elevator shafts.

 

Over 1,000 lamps had already burned out and not been replaced.

 

Mr Yodyiam said AoT lacked an official with direct responsibility for the airport's construction, which had posed an obstacle in getting swift repairs.

 

Another AoT board member, Tortrakul Yomnak, said many areas need repairs and a partial closure was likely.

 

Chaisak Angsuwan, director-general of the Civil Aviation Department, said that due to the persistent problems, the department could not issue a permanent licence for Suvarnabhumi airport.

 

It would, however, extend an interim aerodrome certificate for the airport for another six months in January, he said.

 

Mr Chaisak said the airport needed to meet all physical and operational requirements before it could be given a permanent certificate.

 

There were many cracks in the airport's taxiways, some serious and some not, and repairs would be time-consuming, he said. Many operations staff also have no expertise in using their equipment.

 

Adm Bannawit Kengrian, chairman of the National Legislative Assembly's committee on Suvarnabhumi airport, said his panel had discovered mistakes and irregularities in almost all the airport's contracts. Names of those believed responsible would be announced in two weeks.

 

Specifications in some contracts had been distorted, he said.

 

Salaries paid executives of the Novotel Suvarnabhumi Airport Hotel were unusually high. Despite its claimed five-star status, the hotel had plywood doors.

 

An inexperienced contractor operated transformers that supply power to visiting aircraft and six transformers had burnt out. The cost of digging ditches around the airport was inflated to three billion baht and hiring security guards to five billion baht.

 

Any contracts where corruption was found would be scrapped, he said

 

[Guest Geezer]

[Gaybutton]

Looks as if we are going to have an entirely new airport.

 

You may be close to correct. Several low-fare airlines have already asked to go back to Don Muang ( see: http://www.gaythailand.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=1121 ). Based on what I'm reading here, I'm not surprised.

 

Forty years in the making, and this is what Thailand comes up with.

[Guest buaseng]

As far as I can see the whole debacle is the result of Thaksin wanting a spectacular event to boost his standing prior to the election he planned for October. That was of course overtaken by the coup.

 

I saw elsewhere that the airport is nearing its capacity already. Maybe this will be a good enough excuse to permanently divert private aircraft, charter flights and some internal routes back to Don Muang - a solution which the budget airlines have been clamouring for.

 

The airport is operating on, I believe, a six-month temporary license from the IATA. The Government may be forced to return to using Don Muang anyway, if a full license is refused when the six months are up. Without international certification the airport would have to close until it is made suitable and acceptable for international flights.

 

Regarding the corruption and mis-management - it was all to be expected, after all This is Thailand.

[Guest BKKvisitor]

If this doesn't wake up foreign investors to rethink the way they have been pouring money into Thai investments, I don't know what will. Corruption has been endemic to the LOS and simply changing the government isn't going to change what has taken decades to develop.

 

Although the AOT is not admitting to it yet, there were rumors early on about problems with runway construction. If this is indeed the case, the new airport's immediate future is unclear.

 

And if investors take this event as a warning, the baht will continue to falter along with stock prices.

 

All told, this cannot be a good omen for emerging markets.

[Guest fountainhall]

Re: there were rumors early on about problems with runway construction

 

More than a year ago, the Bangkok Post ran a front page story about cracks in the runway. The Thaksin government sued the Post and the writer, an editor who had been with the paper for many years, was fired. Sadly I doubt will now get his job back and compensation for telling the truth.

 

I have flown in or out of Suvarnahumi now 9 times. I find I am getting more used to it, although many of the flaws are quite obvious. The most serious seem to be the lack of space outside customs and an even more chronic lack of space at the TG economy check-in. I am told lines queue well outside the building at peak hours. If this is true, then it is not just AOT to blame - surely TG bears some responsibility for not raising red flags throughout the design and construction phases? Home base airlines usually hog the best for themselves!