Better Airport News

[Gaybutton]

A friend arrived at Suvarnabhumi Airport two nights ago. He said his airplane parked at the gate at 1:10 AM and he had retrieved his luggage, cleared customs, and was out of the airport by 1:50 AM. He was in Pattaya by and in his hotel room by 3:30 AM.

 

He said that he had no problems at all. He said clearing customs was far more quick and easy than he had ever experienced at Don Muang and was quite satisfied with the new airport.

 

Another friend arrived on the night of September 29, the second night the airport was open. His story was about the same as the one above.

 

At least as far as late night arrivals is concerned, the airport seems to have its act together. Once some of you go through morning and afternoon arrivals, I hope you will post about your experiences. Also, I hope some of you will post about departure experiences and domestic flight experiences.

 

One of the goals of the new airport is to become a hub for Asian flights. There are nearby airport hotels, but they seem to be quite expensive for travelers who only want a room for a few hours. The Tokyo-Narita airport has inexpensive day rooms for rent, right within the terminal building. You don't have to clear customs to use those rooms, but at Suvarnabhumi you would have to clear customs to use any of the nearby airport hotels.The last time I used the Tokyo day rooms the price was US $5 per hour. Does anyone know if Suvarnabhumi has anything similar to the Tokyo day rooms?

[Guest fountainhall]

I arrived on Wednesday shortly after 5:00 pm. There was a small problem with both air bridges as the staff had difficulty working the computer controls, but they finally made it. Long, long walk to Immigration and some confusing signposting along the way. Most airports have signs to 'Arrivals' or 'Baggage Claim' but Suvarnabhumi only has 'Immigration'. First in queue and so got to baggage carousel in record time compared to Don Muang. Luggage did seem to take a long time to arive but this can also be put down to teething problems. Total time from arrival at gate to clearing customs around 55 minutes.

 

Biggest problem seems to be the lack of space after clearing customs. It's as bad as Heathrow Terminal 4. If there are lots of people waiting to meet passengers, it will get totally chaotic. Handwritten taxi signs to the 1st floor were clear but it's confusing finding the despatcher's desk as there was no sign, no queue and yet dozens of people trying to grab my luggage. No-one seemed to know my soi but nodded when I said Rama 4 tollway exit. Then the real problem started. The taxi driver did not know his way. Having come down the east side of the airport and on to the Bangna-Trat Expressway, he then took a wrong turning and off we went up the west side towards Sukhumvit. We eventually completed a full circle at a cost of an extra 140 Baht and a good 45 minutes thanks to a huge traffic jam at the north end. Now that I know the right exits to take, I will be much more careful in future.

 

Just one word of warning. If you approach the airport from the west side via the Bangna-Trat Expresssway at rush hour, beware of that huge jam at the Sukhumvit end before you can turn into the airport complex. Allow plenty of time. Instead of just one entrance from the north, the planners might have considered a second one from the south Expressway. But then, I guess these are the same planners who decided an airport express train was not a priority!

[Gaybutton]

Fountainhall, one of the complaints I have been reading about is difficulty trying to figure out which luggage carrel is the one that services your flight. I've read that the announcement board prints the carrel information so small that it's difficult to read. What was your impression? Did you encounter any problems? How long would you say it took for your luggage to show up?

[Guest wowpow]

Though it is to be expected that the press and travellers will be lining up to point out flaws in the new airport's operation there have been not that many to date and none really serious other than minor teething troubles which all new airports experience.

 

The forcasts of major disaster and it isn't ready have all proved false. The immensley complex job seems to have been done quite well overall and the new airport is nice and shiny.

 

The potential disaster if the bus to the taxi service has been avoided at the last minute. The major probs seem to be long walks - common in airports and at least there are travellators. I am disappointed to hear that they have not sorted out the Arrival Hall. It was horrendous at Dom Muang when you often had to force you way through a mass of humanity to exit the airport. There was no supervision or control and people just blocked the way through. It is a difficult one to solve when there are lots of flights coming in at similar times and lots of greeters and limos waiting to greet passengers.

 

[Guest fountainhall]

Sorry for the delay in replying to Gaybutton's comment re the baggage carousel information board. He is 100% correct. It is a TV monitor with a multicoloured readout that is totally unreadable - even when up close to it! I was lucky because my flight had one of the carousels very close to Immigration and the flight numbers/departure cities are easily seen.

[Guest BKKvisitor]

AND SOME NOT SO BETTER NEWS:

 

John Aglionby, south-east Asia correspondent

Monday October 9, 2006

Guardian

 

Anyone flying out of Bangkok's new Suvarnabhumi airport might want to consider squeezing all their belongings into their hand luggage after 6,700 pieces of check-in baggage were stranded on Saturday following the failure of a computerised sorting system.

Of these, 1,200 missed their flights and had to be forwarded later. More than 20 domestic and international flights were delayed, most notably on Thai Airways, Cathay Pacific, Vietnam Airlines and China Airlines.

 

Somchai Sawasdeepon, vice president of the Thai airport authority, Airports of Thailand, was quoted by the Bangkok Post newspaper yesterday as saying the problem occurred when the luggage sorting system twice failed to read barcodes on tags, for a total of 80 minutes.

 

Staff were ordered to switch to a manual contingency plan involving the total number of checked-in bags being recounted but many employees were reportedly confused about what this entailed and so mountains of luggage quickly built up at departure terminals.

 

Dozens of soldiers were hurriedly deployed to move the baggage.

 

The bad news for passengers is that airport officials admitted they have no idea what caused the glitch and so have little idea how to solve it. "This [problem] is something about the database of the server used for baggage sorting," Mr Somchai was quoted as saying.

 

The installer of the baggage handling system, the Japanese firm Kawasaki Co, has been summoned for meetings to resolve the problem. Delays are expected at least until midday today.

 

Suvarnabhumi has been beset by baggage handling problems since it opened on September 28. The chaos on the first day was deemed so bad it resulted in the Thai Airways managing director for ground support equipment services, Pethai Boonyaves, being moved to an inactive position.

 

The Post said the hiccups have cost the airline hundreds of thousands of pounds in compensation.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/airlines/story/0,,1890869,00.html

[Guest lvdkeyes]

I flew out of the new airport on Oct 4 on Air Asia. A word of note: Air Asia has only one check in area. The signs outside show Air Asia Domestic, when, in fact, it is both domestic and international.

 

The area where there are shops and restaurants is very sleek and impressive. I didn't see any stalls that sell those sorry sandwiches like at the old airport. The restaurants looked inviting.

 

Also, if you plan to buy food or drinks, do so before you go through the carry on security check as there are no facilities after that point.

 

When I returned on Oct 10, I landed at 4PM. I found the immigration and baggage claim areas a little confusing. It is best to check on the monitor to see what belt your luggage will come in on and go to the immigration nearest to it. The line was shorter then those nearer to planes that had landed earlier. From the time I landed until I was getting a taxi was a little less than one hour. It was nice that there were some seats to sit and wait for luggage to arrive.

 

If you want to use public taxi, you have to go downstairs from the level where you arrive. There is also a FREE shuttle bus to public buses, but I didn't use it so I can't say anymore than that about it.