AOT want to move all Budget flights back to Don Muang

[Guest wowpow]

AOT looks to shift low-cost carriers: Airports of Thailand (AOT) will soon propose to the revenue subcommittee the plan to reopen Don Mueang as an international airport for low-cost airlines, as part of its plan to raise revenue.

The Nation : Published on September 3, 2007

 

"We have discussed the reopening issue with low-cost airlines and they agreed to the plan," said Kulya Pakakrong, acting president of the company, which operates five international airports and Don Mueang. Sources at Suvarnabhumi Airport said that the number of passengers at the main international airport this year would reach 42 million, which is close to its maximum capacity of 45 million, even though some flights have been moved to Don Mueang. Kulya said she was confident low-cost airlines would love to move to Don Mueang even though it would not provide connecting flights and would charge the same fees as Suvarnabhumi.

 

"What low-cost airlines want is minimum turnaround time. At Don Mueang, they can operate with fewer officers, it is faster to check in, the runways are shorter, and it is more accessible than Suvarnabhumi. Overall, it should reduce their operating cost and they should not mind the fees," she said. If the plan is approved, the International Terminal 1 will be reopened.

 

Meanwhile, AOT is reviewing the use of commercial space at Don Mueang and four international airports in Phuket, Hat Yai, Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai as it bids to increase revenue from this area to 45 per cent of the total in 2010, up from 37 per cent currently. Its other revenue source is the aeronautical business, mainly parking and landing fees.

 

Shops at these airports will be regrouped according to a new zoning policy, under the supervision of a Thammasat University team. AOT is also considering what outlets should be added to please travellers, such as of popular coffee and fast-food chains. Though this would mean lower rents for AOT due to the popularity of the brands, these outlets could draw more travellers. Now that AOT's commercial revenue derives from rents and a share of sales, it would eventually earn more, Kulya said.

 

Giving priority to travellers' convenience, AOT is also reviewing contracts with limousine-service operators at the provincial airports. So far the contracts have been renewed without any assessment of the service provided. It has also opened the commercial space to any operator who can afford the fixed rental rate.

 

"Unlike at Suvarnabhumi, any bank that can pay the rent can put up their ATM or foreign-exchange booths anywhere they like," Kulya said.

 

Other plans include giving permission to put up billboards along the roads to passenger terminals, which should raise about Bt100 million annually, and turning 1,000 rai into a hotel and shopping complex.

 

Kulya said that once the legal dispute with King Power International Group was settled, AOT should receive more income from the duty-free shop business. So far, income of about Bt1.5 billion has been parked with the Civil Court. "Then, our aeronautical and commercial revenue ratio could be 50:50," she said.

 

Achara Deboonme The Nation

[Guest fountainhall]

I arrived back this afternoon at 4:00pm and could not believe the queues at immigration - they stretched right back to the duty free shops. I spoke to an Immigration officer who agreed that mid-afternoon is a peak arrival period but said they do not have staff to cope. So, the central immigration section (the middle of three) was completely closed. At the west section only 16 of a total of 40 stations were manned. Assuming the central section also has 40 stations, that means only 20% were manned.

 

It took me 55 minutes to get to an officer. Even at its very worst (which was not often), I never had to wait more than 30 minutes at Don Muang in over 100 arrivals. I use Suvarnabhumi at least twice a month and it is obvious that it is unable to cope with the increasing number of passengers. There is just no comparison with Singapore, Hong Kong, Kuala Lumpur - even the unfriendly-to-non-Japanese Narita. Any chance of its becoming the hub of Asia is disappearing fast - in fact, it's becoming a joke.

[Guest buaseng]

Any chance of its becoming the hub of Asia is disappearing fast - in fact, it's becoming a joke.

That was just pie-in-the-sky wishful thinking by Thaksin and his cronies. Suvarnabhumi never had a chance with Kuala Lumpur and Singapore as neighbours and both far better designed and providing a vastly more efficient service.!

[payless]

That was just pie-in-the-sky wishful thinking by Thaksin and his cronies. Suvarnabhumi never had a chance with Kuala Lumpur and Singapore as neighbours and both far better designed and providing a vastly more efficient service.!

 

Let's keep this in perspective buaseng. KLIA is a small regional airport compared to Suvarnabhumi and Singapore airports if the information on wikipedia is anything to go by.

 

A little information about KL airport:

 

In 2003 All Nippon Airways, British Airways, Lufthansa and Northwest Airlines, terminated their services at Kuala Lumpur international airport due to unprofitability. The first phase of the airport was designed with a capacity of 25 million passengers per year but on the first full year of operations in 1999, it saw only 13.2 million. However, traffic did eventually increase with 21.1 million passengers recorded in 2004 and 23.2 million in 2005 — although this, too, fell short of the original estimate of 25 million by the year 2003.

 

In 2007, KLIA was rated the Best Airport in the world for 15-25 million passengers.

 

In your personal experience rather than heresay what difficulties have you actually encountered when using Suvarnabhumi?

 

I use it monthly and apart from one time out of about 14 usages I have no bad experiences to report.

 

[Guest buaseng]

In your personal experience rather than heresay what difficulties have you actually encountered when using Suvarnabhumi?

 

Three times through Suvarnabhumi (in and out)

 

1. Waits at Immigration on arrival (at different times of the day) - 35 minutes, 52 minutes, 1 Hour and 8 Minutes!

 

2. Waits in the check-in queue for THAI (economy) (twice) - 35 minutes and 55 minutes. The only other check-in time length (with EVA 10 minutes!).

 

And we are all well aware of the problems with taxis, uneven and slippery floors, dirty windows, lack of refreshment facilities, lack of restrooms and toilet facilities (of which the latter has still not been resolved despite promises that urgent action would be taken to improve the situation) etc etc

 

As for KLIA - yes it is smaller and that may not allow it to be a regional hub but Singapore - now that's an entirely different matter !

[payless]

Thanks for that buaseng

 

When KLIA opened the taxi concession was let to the then Prime Minister's relatives and believe me Malaysia is as corrupt as Thailand.

 

KLIA airport is designed to handle 100m passengers per year. Albeit with the need for some more building

 

 

A little snippet about KLIA - mght ring some bells with Thailand's airport.

 

Customer Service Malaysia style: Those of you complaining of long waits for baggage delivery or missing baggage at the sparkling new Kuala Lumpur International Airport complain no more! It's just a necessary consequence of development that customer service should necessarily decline "...because modern airports are built that way..." according to KLIA senior vice president for ground services Tuan Ibrahim Tengku Abdullah, quoted in the major Malaysian government English language newspaper, the New Straits Times. "...We understand that 55 minutes seems like a long time... but the way the airport is built makes it impossible for us to make the time shorter..." explains Abdullah. Furthermore "... KLIA cannot be compared to other airports as it is a modern one designed in such a way that the landing strip is quote a distance away from the baggage claim area." According to the good gentleman, the performance target is 55 minutes

[Gaybutton]

Thailand's hope for Suvanabhumi to become "The Asian Hub" is about as fouled up a mess as so much else is within Thailand's infrastructure. The world's newest modern airport and yet it has all these problems? I can't think of anything about that airport that isn't a problem. While it's true that many people using that airport have been quite satisfied with it and have not encountered any problems, there are also quite a number of people who have. Why?

 

The way I see it is that Thailand ended up investing lord knows how much money into an airport that was build in a poor location in the first place, experienced runway problems almost from the beginning and also experienced an attempt to cover up the existence of those problems, has people complaining about the long walks just to get to and from the airplanes, the lack of enough bathroom and restaurant facilities, long waits trying to clear customs, has people who reside anywhere near the airport living in hell because of the noise, already can't handle the number of aircraft trying to use it, and the list just goes on and on.

 

A brand new airport, but now flights have to end up going back to the old airport which will cause enormous inconvenience and hassle to people making connecting flights.

 

Somehow, I don't see this airport as a project that ought to have Thailand's leaders proudly hailing it as "this is the way to do it." What was to be a fabulous new facility ended up being a disgrace. Can you picture another country saying, "We need a new airport. Let's do the same thing Thailand did."?

 

I have a feeling that if anyone writes a book about how to design and build an airport, Suvarnabhumi will be the subject of the chapter entitled, "Don't Let This Happen to You."

[Guest fountainhall]

I reckon most people's first impressions of an airport are based on - (1) length of time it takes to get from the aircraft to Immigration, (2) length of wait at Immigration, (3) time taken for baggage to get to the carousels, and (4) ease of getting out of the airport to one's destination. To be fair, I have never had much problem with (3) and (4), but (1) and (2) are mostly disastrous. If you are going to put an entire airport on such a large area, then you do what Hong Kong, KL, Singapore, Narita, Taipei and others do - you have a small automated train shuttle. You don't expect passengers to hoof it for 15 - 20 minutes - no matter how many people movers you have. And passengers certainly don't expect duty free stores in a position so close to Immigration where they now have to navigate an obstacle course (but then the duty free may finally be relocated).

 

As for THAI check-in, it is probably the worst in the world at peak times - and I include the hub US airports in the comparison! I believe the ONLY answer is to transfer 90% of domestic flights and all low cost airlines back to Don Muang. That's the same as at New York's JFK and LGA - and that doesn't seem to reduce demand to New York as an entry point to the US!

 

 

[Gaybutton]

That's the same as at New York's JFK and LGA - and that doesn't seem to reduce demand to New York as an entry point to the US!

 

When you consider how long both LaGuardia and Kennedy International airports have been in New York compared to how long Suvarnabhumi had been in existence, I don't see how demand as an entry point has much to do with it. Whether in New York or in Bangkok, having to transfer from one airport to another to catch connecting flights is at best an inconvenience. For such an inconvenience to be necessary when a brand new airport, one that should have been the most advanced in the world, has been open for only a year, doesn't that bring words such as "incompetence" and "inexcusable" to mind?

 

Only a year later and they already have to shift flights back to Don Muang? What does that portend about five, ten, or fifteen years down the road? It's already a massive problem and I don't see very many of the world's airports improving with age.

[Guest fountainhall]

Whether in New York or in Bangkok, having to transfer from one airport to another to catch connecting flights is at best an inconvenience

 

I entirely agree, but the fact is that Suvarnabhumi is a botched mess and no government is going to spend the billions of Baht it will need to increase capacity and enable smooth transfers. But let's face it: if you transfer at JFK or London's Heathrow, you are basically doing the same as here in Bangkok. Switching terminals is not much different from switching between Suvarnabhumi and Don Muang. Sure you have to pick up your bags and clear immigration here, but try going through Heathrow just now and the chance of your bag arriving at your next destination is quite small. 3 weeks ago, my suitcase was 'lost' for 2 days during a routine transfer at Heathrow. The reason? The systems cannot cope with the government's one bag on board policy which has resulted in many more bags having to go in the hold. So perhaps we should count our blessings!

[Guest GaySacGuy]

I guess that I have been very lucky with my experiences at Suvanabhumi airport. I have flown international three times since it opened, and flown domestic several others. My check-in times have all be reasonable (less than 15 minutes) with Thai, Eva, and Air Asia. The walk is quite a distance, but have you tried to go terminal to terminal at LAX...much more diffucult, and no moving sidewalks.

 

Immigration has always been quick, with no wait my last arrival from the US at 6:15 am, to about 20 minutes at the worst.

 

My one compliant would be the time it takes to get bags to the baggage pick-up area. It is excessive, especially with Air Asia.

 

Guess I will just have to wait to see how things go in November, when I fly out to Singapore, back to Bangkok, to Chaing Mai, and then to Bangkok and US...all in 10 days.

[dapitt]

I guess that I have been very lucky with my experiences at Suvanabhumi airport.

I agree with all that you say, GaySacGuy. I've flown internationally and domestically through Suvanabhumi four times and have had only pleasant experiences. I've neither seen nor experienced any of the problems others write so vociferously about. The U.S. gateways?....now that's another story!

[Guest fountainhall]

The U.S. gateways?....now that's another story!

 

When I have to fly to the US, I try if possible to enter via Canada. I go to Vancouver or Toronto where you easily clear US Immigration on departing these airports. Last month I had to arrive at JFK from London and really feared the worst at Immigration. Amazingly, it took less than 5 minutes! So, much depends on days, times and other airline schedules. But going back to my original point about Suvarnabhumi, it is very obvious that at certain peak times each day, it is just not able to cope - and it's getting worse.

 

My one compliant would be the time it takes to get bags to the baggage pick-up area. It is excessive, especially with Air Asia.

 

Totally agree. On my last domestic flight, bags from Thai Air Asia took 50 minutes. Compare that to Nok at Don Muang where it rarely takes more than 15.

[Guest fountainhall]

After my ranting about Immigration queues, finally a pleasant experience at the airport. I arrived around midnght last night. The aircraft parked at one of two gates very close to the Immigration sections (I had no idea they existed!). The walk past the duty free shops to Immigration was, amazingly, less than 1 minute, and several desks had no queues. From leaving the aircraft to clearing Immigration was 3 minutes - and would have been less had the officer not spent ages trying to find my visa! In over 3 million miles of travel, that beats my previous record of around 4 minutes some years ago at Changi. Amazing Thailand!

[Guest fountainhall]

Airport Public Taxi Stands Have Moved

 

Returned to Suvarnabhumi last night on an international flight, proceeded through customs and downstairs to the public taxis - only to discover the authorities have now moved them up to the arrivals level at Gate 9 (the one furthest west)! I am sure the public taxi signs after exiting customs still pointed eastwards, but perhaps I missed one hidden by the awaiting throng of greeters.

 

It also seems to me that whereas there used to be three public taxi queues downstairs, there is now only one at the east exit (below the THAI check in area) and one at the west. This would explain why at what is always a less busy time for arrivals, there was - unusually - a queue for taxis. If I am correct, waiting times at peak periods in future will be a good deal longer than before. My guess is this is just another ploy to force unsuspecting passengers into using the rip-off AOT "taxis".