Suvarnabhumi Voted 5th Best AIrport in World!!!!!

[Guest fountainhall]

Anyone want to lay odds on the effectiveness of the pending improvements?

Two weeks to finalise the report - minimum two years to implement, I reckon. You can't just go out and hire more people, and then expect them to be trained Immigration officers in a flash. Besides, one major reason for the snail's pace of Immigration processing is the archaic computer system. If that has to be replaced, don't bet on any installation date, because layers and layers of graft have to be added - and that always requires a good bit of negotiation to be sure it can be hidden amongst false trails and baht-filled lunch boxes

[Guest]

You can't just go out and hire more people, and then expect them to be trained Immigration officers in a flash.

On the contrary, I certainly can. How much effort is required to read a passport, check the visitors face & handle some basic paperwork? Plus ask a few stupid questions e.g

IO:"Which hotel are you staying at?"

Visitor "Not decided yet"

IO: OK

 

After all, if things get difficult all our new immigration officer has to do is call his supervisor.

[Guest fountainhall]

Aren't these the very guys who are supposed to be able to spot the fake passport holders, the terrorists and paedophiles amongst us ordinary mortals? Not sure I'd like someone dragged off the street to be responsible for that. Entering the UK, you can see the eagle eyes of the Immigration officers scan 2 or 3 down the line in addition to the one whose passport they're checking.

[Guest anonone]

On the contrary, I certainly can. How much effort is required to read a passport, check the visitors face & handle some basic paperwork? Plus ask a few stupid questions e.g

IO:"Which hotel are you staying at?"

Visitor "Not decided yet"

IO: OK

 

Do Immigration Officer's at BKK every ask questions? I have never been asked a thing when entering or leaving. I can't even recall them saying anything to me....not a word.

 

Maybe I just have an honest face....

[Guest fountainhall]

I've been asked to sign my name on the TM form!

[Bob]

I've been asked to sign my name on the TM form!

 

Lol. Didn't have time on the 12-hour flight?

[Guest fountainhall]

Just forgot! That box is so small, I sometimes forget about it!!

 

On the more general thread of Suvarhabhumi and its good and bad points, yesterday I took the Emirates A380 to Hong Kong. Shortly after noon, the Immigration queue at the west end was the longest I have ever seen. It snaked outside the designated area, stretched west to the end, doubled back all the way past the eastern end of that section and then down into one of the check-in areas. I could not believe my eyes! No wonder there have been a lot of complaints in the media recently. Those at the end must have had a wait of well over an hour, if not 90 minutes. Thank goodness for my APEC Business Travel card so I can avoid all that!

 

The Emirates A380 is surprisingly fast to board since it uses 3 air bridges - 2 for the lower deck and 1 for the upper where business and first class is situated. Business class has separate 8-across mini-cabins with seats which recline fully flat, a little mini bar at the side and a huge TV screen. At the back, there is a stand-up bar which seemed pretty popular. I really enjoyed the flight. It's also a good deal cheaper than the main carriers on that route, Cathay Pacific and THAI.

 

Interestingly, and presumably because of the unrest in the Middle East, there were at least six security screeners waiting at the end of the air bridge on arrival in HKG. They were just standing there scrutinising each of the passengers, and occasionally asking one for his/her passport.

[gerefan]

So you arrive at Suvanabumi 3 hours prior to departure, as requested, where the hell do you sit??

[Guest fountainhall]

So you arrive at Suvanabumi 3 hours prior to departure, as requested, where the hell do you sit??

Who has time to sit, if you spend 30 minutes in a check-in queue and then 60 - 90 minutes in an Immigration queue? Mind you, if you can take your eyes off the overpriced shopping (have you noticed that none of the prices have come down even with the Baht having risen quite dramatically last year), you can always sit and have a coffee in one of the overpriced restaurants

[Guest fountainhall]

Just discovered what is worse than a bus gate - an airbridge which does not work! Arrived bang on time at Helsinki this morning. Then had to wait 20 long minutes on the plane because the airbridge had a fault. Since Finnair permit international connections in just 45 minutes, there were quite a few passengers getting decidedly panicky!

 

And I see there is another pretty bad article about the on-going problems at Suvarnabhumi today.

 

http://www.nationmultimedia.com/home/Suvarnabhumi-a-bad-experience-for-travellers-30149833.html

[Guest aot87]

Have just read the article from the nation , its the first time i have heard about a food court in the basement, not that i ever have time to visit.Because of the lack of seating I tend to allow myself about 2 hrs to check in and go through, then go straight to the gate, at least theres seats there, But on my last 3 times, i found that its too hot, as air con needs to be turned up , unless thats my problum,

[Guest fountainhall]

its the first time i have heard about a food court in the basement

I've eaten there twice - and enjoyed it. It's large, has lots of choice and prices seemed to be reasonable. But I cannot remember how to get there! I know the only times I was there I was taking a domestic flight, and so I doubt if it is accessible after Immigration. All I remember is that it is in the east side.

[Guest fountainhall]

That poll naming Suvarnabhuni as the 5th best airport in the world (but only for airports with an annual capacity in excess of 40 million passengers) was clearly a flash in the pan. At a roundtable titled "Thailand: An Opportunity to Be a Global Aviation Hub" organised last week by Krungthep Turakij newspaper and attended by key players in the tourism and aviation industries, it was reported that the airport this year had fallen to 40th from 24th place in the global airport rankings. The report in The Nation does not provide the source of this ranking, but given the high profile of the forum, it is bound to be accurate. For my money, it is a much more accurate indication that the AOT continues to fail in sorting out many of the problems that still remain.

 

I know I am a fairly constant critic of the airport. But then I go through it many times each year. Just in the last 2 weeks, I was out there 3 times for arriving and departing clients. Each time I came across so many problems that just do not exist at most other new airports. The entire experience of trying to meet someone coming from the Baggage and Customs area is ridiculous. Try getting from the Arrivals area up to the Departures area and vice versa. They’re only 2 floors apart, but in each direction you have to progress through an insane obstacle course that requires you to double-back a couple of times, take a variety of escalators and a pretty long walk. Lifts? Yes, they’re there, but for some idiotic reason, they don’t link these two floors!

 

Back to the roundtable.

 

Nitinai Sirismatthakarn, AOT senior executive vice president for business development and marketing, said about 70 per cent of travellers at Singapore's Changi Airport stopped over and visited the city, while only 30 per cent were in transit. At Bangkok's Suvarnabhumi Airport, 30 per cent of passengers stayed on in the Kingdom and 70 per cent transited to other countries.

 

"AOT aims to reverse the numbers. Seventy per cent should stop over in Thailand," he said.

Now that does surprise me. I assumed there would be much more stop-over traffic. Then I remembered how much effort the Singapore Tourism authorities put into encouraging stop-overs, from discounted hotel rates, special shopping vouchers, colour brochures with details of the entertainment on in the city when you are there – and so on. By comparison, what do the TAT do for short-term stop-overs? Precious little, as far as I can see.

 

Pornthip Hirunkate, vice president of the Tourism Council of Thailand (TCT), urged the government and authorities involved in the aviation sector to consider long-term development if they want to see Thailand become a global or even a regional aviation hub.

 

"We have reached full capacity at two major airports, Suvarnabhumi and Phuket International, but haven't seen as yet any long-term development plan in preparation for the future," Pornthip said.

 

She said the TCT, the country's largest private tourism body, wanted to hear a 10-year strategy of forward thinking like that in many countries such as Singapore and South Korea. She called for such participants as THAI, the Ministry of Tourism and Sports, AOT and the private sector to work together to improve the standards of internal management and services. Singapore, for instance, is already preparing for the regional open sky that will start in 2013 and for seamless trade within the Asean Economic Community in 2015. Thailand should get ready to |benefit from the open-sky policy.

http://www.nationmultimedia.com/home/Govt-industry-must-join-hand-to-achieve-aviation-h-30151885.html

 

Well, it’s fairly common knowledge that both airports are already at full capacity. The government’s study on Bangkok’s 2 airports is due to be published soon. IATA has urged the government to concentrate on just one airport. I say that IATA is just plain wrong. The AOT say that a major expansion is supposed to ease congestion by 2015. Given the problems that still have not been ironed out over the last 5 years, I'll put money on the table that that just isn't going to happen!

[Guest]

Competition is always better. Don Muang could be sold off to some consortium headed up by a proven overseas airport. Then they should freely compete for business.

 

Other than a few little issues over escalator layout, Suvarnabhumi seems like a very spacious & comfortable airport. I reckon it just needs a few tweaks to immigration & baggage handling to smooth the throughput of the current volume of passengers. If the current management cared about customer service, no doubt these problems could be solved.

However, why should they care when running a monopoly business?

[Bob]

Other than a few little issues over escalator layout, Suvarnabhumi seems like a very spacious & comfortable airport. I reckon it just needs a few tweaks to immigration & baggage handling to smooth the throughput of the current volume of passengers. If the current management cared about customer service, no doubt these problems could be solved.

 

Fountainhill uses Suvarnabhumi more than I do (I only go through there twice a year) so he probably has a more complete perspective of the issues there than I do; however, given my limited experience, I've really never had a problem there that I'd blame on the airport itself. The long walks are there, for sure (from the fourth floor to the gates to Chiangmai, it seems like a journey in itself sometimes) but it's easy for me to find and the motorized walkways (when working) do help. The long walks are probably unavoidable in any airport of this size but sometimes I wonder if a designed-in people mover would have been wise. The one item I still appreciate the most - compared to Don Muang - is the relative ease of going from domestic to international and vice-versa.

[Guest fountainhall]

I am sure Bob is correct in suggesting that occasional passengers do not see many of the faults that are obvious to more regular travellers. But the fact that the AOT and the immigration Department are so totally unable to get their acts together is having a huge negative effect. The Skytrax site is the one most often used by regular travellers as its posters are the ones with more experience of other airports. Here are 9 of the comments from just the first page of 17 BKK reviews.

 

“Don Mueang was a better airport than Suvarnabhumi for the passenger”

 

“The old Don Muang airport leaves this new one for dead . . . Suvarnabhumi feels like a warehouse”

 

“Immigration is a nightmare. We queued for 1 hr to enter and 1.30 hr to leave”

 

“The service (or lack of it) is getting worse by the day. Long queues, sometimes one and a half hours, are not uncommon. I wish I could enter Thailand at another airport”

 

“Extremely long queues at Immigration (90 mins average), unfriendly staff, expensive tax-free monopoly, taxi touts at arrivals, the list is endless. Avoid, unless obliged to come to Thailand”

 

“The lousiest Airport I know. Immigration is a nightmare”

 

“Immigration queues are a nightmare”

 

“Took 35 mins just to get into the Immigration Area and a further 40 mins to get to the Desk and 2 mins to get a stamp . . . Down at the gates flights were being held up and bags offloaded because late checking-in passengers simply weren't getting to the gate in time to make the scheduled departure time”

 

“Had to queue at passport control for almost 2 hours when leaving last Saturday”

 

http://www.airlinequality.com/Airports/Airport_forum/bkk-suv.htm

 

Most of these complaints are about Immigration – regrettably for most passengers their first and last experience of Thailand. If you don’t have access to the fast track counters, I’d avoid any early morning, mid-day and late night departures when the queues usually spill way out of their designated areas.

[Guest]

Immigration queues of 1 hour would be a problem. This shows a complete disregard for the customer. Anyone who suffers this could lobby the Bangkok Post, Trip Advisor, TAT & any other organisation that might eventually generate enough publicity to persuade the airport to sort this out (if many visitors keep saying the same).

 

As for the taxi touts, they are non-aggressive & having them part relieve you of your money is entirely voluntary. I see no problem in them parting fools from their money via a legal market based solution. Anyone who cares about getting value for money can keep walking to the rail link or a normal taxi.

[Guest fountainhall]

As for the taxi touts, they are non-aggressive & having them part relieve you of your money is entirely voluntary. I see no problem in them parting fools from their money via a legal market based solution. Anyone who cares about getting value for money can keep walking to the rail link or a normal taxi.

The problem for me is the 'official taxi touts' - those light-blue, skimpily clad girls who harass visitors (nicely, I have to add) within the baggage hall area prior to customs. They are also the first ones visitors comes across as soon as they get through customs. These girls are peddling official AOT taxis at up to four times the price of regular street taxis. They may offer nicer cars and a couple of minutes less waiting time - but they are an officially-sanctioned rip off, plain and simple. z909 and others who are regular visitors know what they are up to. Casual first time visitors may well assume that these are normal taxis and be thankful for a seemingly excellent service. It's only when they take a street taxi that they'll realise they've been 'had'.

[Guest]

The problem for me is the 'official taxi touts' - those light-blue, skimpily clad girls who harass visitors.

They clear off really fast when I scowl and loudly say no thank you.

 

Casual first time visitors may well assume that these are normal taxis and be thankful for a seemingly excellent service. It's only when they take a street taxi that they'll realise they've been 'had'.

Any casual visitor who doesn't spend 5 minutes on the internet working how to get from an airport to town and then buys the first service they see is getting what they deserve. Many will have LP guides & plenty of time to read them on the plane.