Suvarnabhumi to Celebrate Six Years since Opening

[Guest fountainhall]

Today the Bangkok Post had a couple of articles about worrying issues still to be solved at Suvarnabhumi. This as Friday sees the airport’s 6th anniversary of its opening.

 

The first is about bird strikes. Whilst there has been only one reported accident as yet, the airport director said the AOT plans to lay artificial turf in place of grass.

 

Suvarnabhumi airport stands amid farmland, fish ponds, paddy fields and unused areas that attract many kinds of indigenous and migrant birds.

 

Vast areas in the airport compound are food sources for many kinds of wildlife. They include swamps, drainage ditches and empty areas in the southern and western parts of the airport.

 

Somchai Sawasdipol, Suvarnabhumi airport director and vice-president of Airports of Thailand Plc (AOT), said birds are a major aviation risk. traffic

 

Laying down artificial turf and concrete slabs in empty areas of the airport compound could help deter birds, he said.

 

http://www.bangkokpo...-easy-solutions

 

The other is the same old problem of the lack of Immigration officers, although the complaints in the Post’s story are not new and the introduction of automatic gates for Thais is clearly helping reduce queues.

 

Pol Maj Gen Natthorn said there is a huge shortage of immigration officers to process travel documents and electronic machines have been brought in to help them do the work. Authorities have deployed a number of automatic channel machines to check Thai passports, the commander said.

 

The equipment has helped shorten queues at the immigration desk, he said. "It is impossible to hire more officials to match the ever growing number of passengers. So, the best way is to use machines which will boost work efficiency," he added.

 

Pol Maj Gen Natthorn also proposed recruiting translators of Russian, Chinese, Korean and Japanese languages to assist immigration officers.

 

http://www.bangkokpo...f-is-overloaded

[Guest]

"It is impossible to hire more officials to match the ever growing number of passengers. So, the best way is to use machines which will boost work efficiency"

 

Lets say each immigration officer processes 15 passengers an hour and aircraft landing fees could include a modest charge of 50 baht per passenger, that leaves 750 baht an hour for paying the staff. So I figure hiring more officials should be quite easy if there is an appropriate charge for their services.

Having said that, the machines are a good idea.

[Rogie]

According to the BP article, the individual record is 27,000 visa checks in a month, which works out at about 170 checks an hour based on an 8 hour day and a 20 day month. Whoever that immigration officer was won himself an overseas package tour!

 

But 5,000 - 6,000 visa checks a month is average so about 30 an hour.

[TotallyOz]

Happy Birthday. I still think the airport is beautiful and fucking horrible to use. Long walks, no trams, not easy paths. Not well thought out and still not fixed.

[KhorTose]

Happy bday. You've come far from your birth in a swamp, and maybe one day you will actually work out.. I am sure you are the best design Thailand could come up with.

There is no design without discipline. There is no discipline without intelligence.

— Massimo Vignelli

[Guest fountainhall]

I won't rehash my beefs about BKK, apart from saying again that there have been some definite improvements. I think Rogie's right. 2 minutes seems to be about right for processing on entry and exit. I was not so sure about the automatic gates when they were introduced, but they certainly seem to speed up the flow. They are clearly the way forward and I hope more are installed quickly.

 

I wish the AOT would turn their attention to the so-called Greetings area. If you ever have to go out to BKK and meet people, it can be a nightmare. You are supposed to wait around Gate 3 - just great if your friends/clients are emerging from the C Immigration area around Gate 10 or 11! I now beat the system by taking my passport and a small trolley bag with me. I then just walk past the security guards who always assume I am a passenger - and I have never once been stopped! Then I wait near the hotel reps by the relevant Exit.

[Rogie]

I haven't had to meet anybody at Suvarnabhumi but I can imagine it's not straightforward. The old airport at Don Muang had two exits so if you were supposed to be meeting someone it was 50:50 you'd guess wrong!

[Bob]

I haven't had to meet anybody at Suvarnabhumi but I can imagine it's not straightforward. The old airport at Don Muang had two exits so if you were supposed to be meeting someone it was 50:50 you'd guess wrong!

 

All (4 or 5 main entrances?) have large numbers over the door so it's easy as hell to hook up with somebody (provided somebody's given notice of the door number ahead of time).

 

I agree that exiting the baggage area to the general floor/hallway area (where there usually are the usual drivers and whatnot hanging around with their signs trying to find somebody) can be sometimes intimidating to the newbe but I just ignore it and head right to where I need to go. If one ever looks puzzled (you know, that "where the hell am I and what am I doing here" look reminiscent of half the falang walking down the Patpong sois), the few touts on the side will pick that up in a flash and do their pouncing job. I kinda chuckle now when I see that happen.

 

But, overall, I like the new airport. It's easy to get around although the distances can be a bit much and it's a million percent better for going from domestic to international (or vice versa) than Don Muang ever hoped to be.

 

Come to think of that, does anybody know if Don Muang will still have that god-awful overhead tunnel (the one about a quarter mile long and that's rarely cooler than about 35C) between international and domestic?

[Guest fountainhall]

As I understand it, there are no plans to use the old Domestic Terminal. All airlines are either using or planning to use the old Terminal 1. Thai Air Asia has asked the AOT to get Terminal 2 operational as it expects demand to pick up quickly after October 1. But I don't think any decision has yet been made.

[kokopelli]

Hard to believe it has been six years. Koko was on the first commercial plane to land there. Being in Business Class I was also among the first people out of the plane for the long walk to Immigration although there were Thai guides along the way.