Suvarnabhumi Airport

Welcome to Suvarnabhumi International Airport . Suvarnabhumi Airport Project is a national priority of the government and is designated to be the aviation hub in Southeast Asian region. Since Bangkok International Airport (BIA) has restrictive development to accommodate the air traffic growth in the future, which is estimated to be up to 58 million passengers per year in 2008 while the full-scale development of provided plot of land at Nong Ngu Hao with its capacity to accommodate 45 million passenger per year, 76 flights per hour and 3 million tons of cargo per year.

Suvarnabhumi Airport, also known as (New) Bangkok International Airport, is the international airport serving Bangkok, Thailand. After delays and three decades of planning, the airport opened for limited domestic flight service on September 15, 2006, and opened for all domestic and international commercial flights on September 28.

Suvarnabhumi Airport, The airport is the main hub for Thai Airways International, Bangkok Airways, Orient Thai Airlines, PBair and Thai AirAsia, and a focus city for China Airlines, Cathay Pacific, Emirates Airline, EVA Air, Indian Airlines, and SriLankan Airlines.

Suvarnabhumi Airport, The airport is located in Racha Thewa in Bang Phli district, Samut Prakan Province, about 25 km east of downtown Bangkok. The name Suvarnabhumi was chosen by King Bhumibol Adulyadej and refers to the golden kingdom hypothesized to have been located somewhere in Southeast Asia. Designed by Helmut Jahn of Murphy/Jahn Architects, this airport has the world's tallest control tower (132.2 m), and the world's third largest single-building airport terminal (563,000 m²), a little smaller than Hong Kong International Airport (570,000 m²) and the current record holder, Beijing Capital International Airport's Terminal Three (986,000 m²). Suvarnabhumi is one of the busiest airports in Asia and Bangkok's primary airport for all international airline flights.The airport inherited the airport code BKK from Don Mueang after the older airport ceased commercial flights.

Months into its opening, issues such as congestion, construction quality, signage, provision of facilities, and soil subsidence continued to plague the project, prompting calls to reopen Don Mueang to allow for repairs to be done. Expert opinions varied widely regarding the extent of Suvarnabhumi's problems as well as their root cause; most airlines stated that damage to the airport was minimal.Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont decided on 16 February 2007 to reopen Don Mueang for domestic flights on a voluntary basis, with 71 weekly flights moved back initially, with no international flights allowed.

A modern motorway connects the airport, Bangkok, and the heavily industrial Eastern Seaboard of Thailand, where most of the manufacturing for export takes place.

History Suvarnabhumi Airport

Land purchase, early construction

The plot of land occupied by the airport with an area of 8,000 acres (32 km?) was purchased in 1973 but the student uprising on October 14 of the same year was followed by the overthrow of the military government of Thanom Kittikachorn and the project was shelved.After a series of ups and downs, the "New Bangkok International Airport" company (NBIA) was formed in 1996. Due to political and economic instabilities, notably the Asian financial crisis of 1997, the civil construction began six years later in January 2002 during the government of Thaksin Shinawatra. The airport is located in a once low-lying marsh, formerly known as Nong Ngu Hao (Thai: Ë¹Í§§ÙàËèÒ, lit. "Cobra Swamp"), which took 5 years (1997 - 2001) to clear through land reclamation. In 2005, the construction supervision and management was transferred to the Airports of Thailand PLC, while the NBIA company was dissolved.

Financing

30% of the airport's construction cost was covered by Airports of Thailand, while another 70% came from the Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC). Airport-related procurement followed JBIC's stringent guidelines for transparency and openness. Despite populism regarding the airport as being built for passengers, Japanese and Thai exporting companies in the area for a long time wanted a round the clock airport built along with a modern motorway between factories, Bangkok, and the port of Laem Chabang.

Early construction, airport tests, and official opening

The airport was due to open in late 2005, but a series of budget overruns, construction flaws, and allegations of corruption plagued the project.

A further problem was the belief that the airport was haunted by spirits, and sightings of ghosts by superstitious construction workers, so that on September 23, 2005, the Thai airports authority held a ceremony with 99 buddhist monks chanting prayers to calm these spirits. IANS article about the haunting

Symbolic first test flights involving two Thai Airways aircraft were held on 29 September 2005, a previously announced deadline for opening.

Full tests of the airport, with seats sold to the public, took place on July 3 and July 29, 2006. Six airlines - Thai Airways International, Nok Air, Thai Air Asia, Bangkok Airways, PBair and One-Two-GO - used the airport as a base for 20 domestic flights.The first international test flights were conducted on September 1, 2006. Two THAI's aircraft, B747-400 and A300-600, simultaneously departed the airport on 9.19am to Singapore and Hong Kong. At 3.50pm the same aircraft flew back and made simultaneous touchdowns on runways 19L and 19R. These test flights demonstrated the readiness of the airport to handle heavy traffic.

On 15 September 2006, the airport started limited daily operations with Jetstar Asia Airways operating three flights daily to Singapore and Thai Airways International operating some domestic flights to Phitsanulok, Chiang Mai and Ubon Ratchathani. Bangkok Airways moved on 21 September, AirAsia and Thai AirAsia followed suit on 25 September and on 26 September Nok Air moved to Suvarnabhumi Airport. During this initial phase, as well as in the previous tests, the airport used the temporary IATA code NBK.

Suvarnabhumi officially opened at 3:00am on September 28, 2006, taking over all flights from Don Mueang. The first flight to arrive was Lufthansa Cargo flight LH8442 from Mumbai at 3:05am. The first commercial arrival was from Japan Airlines at 3:30am. The first passenger arrival was Aerosvit flight VV171 from Kiev at 4:30am, and the first cargo departure was Saudi Arabian Airlines flight SV-984 to Riyadh at 5:00am. Aerosvit also had the first passenger departure (VV172 to Kiev) around 5:30am.

Initial difficulties

Many difficulties were recorded in the first few days of the airport's operation. On the first day alone, sluggish luggage claims were common - the very first passenger arrival by Aerosvit took an hour for the luggage to start coming out, and some flights did not have their luggage coming out even after four hours. Also flights were delayed (Thai Airways claimed that 17 of 19 flights were delayed that day), and there were also failures with the check-in system.Subsequent problems included the failure of the cargo computer system, and the departure boards displaying the wrong information, resulting in confused passengers (especially as unlike Don Muang, there were no "final calls" issued).

Capacity and safety issues

Problems with the tarmac

The Engineering Institute of Thailand conducted investigations at the airport in late 2006 after signs of distress were spotted at several locations in Suvarnabhumi's taxiways and taxilanes. Rutting was found in five of the six taxilanes and one of the six taxiways. Plastic deformation of the asphalt wearing course was observed near the takeoff position of the runway. However, the investigators noted that plastic deformation at this location was a common phenomenon and only routine maintenance was required to repair the distress. Aside from this surface distortion, both runways were in good structural condition.

Further investigations found that that taxilane and taxiway rutting was caused by separation of the asphalt binder from the aggregate surface due to prolonged water infiltration into the asphalt concrete base course, a phenomenon known as "stripping." The 23 cm thick base course is the top-most layer of the tarmac. Core samples indicated that the concrete base course material contained the correct job mix and aggregate gradation. Below the base course are the binder course, the wearing course, and the cement-treated base.

Detailed investigations found that water seepage was evident along the rims of the expansion joints in the cement-tested base, indicating that a large quantity of water was still trapped in the sand blanket (the bottom-most layer of the tarmac). It was found that water trapped in the sand blanket was fully confined with no connection to the pavement areas of the airport. A later investigation by the AoT identified several potential reasons for the trapped water in the sand blanket. The AoT's findings were disputed by several experts.

The Engineering Institute of Thailand sent a formal warning to the AoT in November 2006 about the urgent need to drain water from beneath the tarmac, and the need for immediate action. "The AOT did nothing about the problem," Suebsak Promboon of the EIT later noted. "The situation might not have become this bad if the water had been drained then."

In January 2007, ruts were discovered in the runways at Suvarnabhumi. The east runway was scheduled to close for repairs. Expert opinions have varied widely as to the root cause of the ruts. Airport authorities and airline representatives maintained that the airport was still safe and resisted suggestions that the airport should be completely closed and all flights moved back to Don Muang.

On 27 January 2007, however, the Department of Civil Aviation declined to renew the airport's safety certificate, which expired the previous day. The ICAO requires that international airports hold aerodrome safety certificates, but Suvarnabhumi will continue to operate because the ICAO requirement has yet to be adopted as part of Thai law.

A junta-appointed panel of engineers assigned to inspect the airport noted that damage to the airport was "minute," and "common." According to a panel member, the problem with the runways and taxiways are ruts, not cracks in the asphalt as had previously been claimed. "This is a common type of damage. You see it in airports all over the United States," said Noppodol Phien-Wej, a panel-member. A spokesman for British Airways, also said that "everything is normal," and that "we haven't heard any complaints from the staff."

A two-week investigation led by Tortrakul Yomnak, a chief engineer for Airports of Thailand and a leader of the anti-Thaksin movement, later found that the runway was safe, and that cracks could be repaired in as little as a few hours. At the beginning of the investigation, Tortrakul had warned that the airport might need to be closed for three years.

In a public statement on 15 February 2007, the EIT again strongly recommended that trapped water should be drained out immediately to minimise the potential spread of cracks. Karun Chandrarangsu, president of the Engineering Institute of Thailand noted, "Suvarnabhumi is like a patient in a coma who continues to suffer from severe bleeding. Stopping the blood flow now is more urgent and important than debating what caused the injury."

The military junta used allegedly shoddy construction at the airport as one of the justifications its overthrow of the Thaksin-government, and it later purged the top management of AoT.Critics noted that junta-led investigations were unlikely to reveal an impartial picture of the airport's shortcomings. "Problems are normal for any new airport. In our case it's made more complex because everybody wants to run down the former prime minister," noted Sumet Jumsai, a leading Thai architect.

Capacity

The airport has 2 parallel runways (60 m. wide, 4,000 m. and 3700 m. long) and 2 parallel taxiways to accommodate simultaneous departures and arrivals. It has a total of 120 parking bays (51 with contact gates and 69 remote gates) and 5 of these are capable of accommodating the Airbus A380 aircraft. With a capacity of handling 76 flight operations per hour, both international and domestic flights will share the airport terminal but will be assigned to different parts of the concourse. In the initial phase of construction, it will be capable of handling 45 million passengers and 3 million tonnes of cargo per year. Between the airport hotel and the terminal building are the two 5-storey car park buildings with a combined capacity of 5,000 cars.

Plans to re-open Don Muang for domestic

In January 2007, Thai Airways announced a plan to move some of its domestic operations back to Don Muang International Airport due to overcrowding. Three days later, the Ministry of Transport recommended temporarily reopening Don Muang while repair work on the runways at Suvarnabhumi proceeds. The recommendation is still subject to approval by the junta's Cabinet. Thai Airways said it would shift most of its domestic flights back, keeping flights with high international passenger connections such as Chiang Mai and Phuket at Suvarnabhumi. Bangkok Airways and One-Two-GO have similar plans. Thai AirAsia said it would not move unless it could shift both its international and domestic operations. Nok Air and PBair were undecided.

Repair and upgrades

Airports of Thailand found that the cost of fixing 60 identified problems at the airport would be less than 1% of the total airline cost and the problems could be fixed in up to four to five years. Dr. Narupol Chaiyut, a member of a committee overseeing service problems at the new airport, estimated that 70% of the problems would be fixed within 2007. 20 of the 60 problems were successfully fixed by February 2007.

Novotel Suvarnabhumi Airport Hotel voted the Best Airport Hotel

Novotel Suvarnabhumi Airport Hotel, Bangkok, Thailand was voted the ‘Best Airport Hotel’ in the recent TravelWeekly (Asia) Industry Awards 2008 organised by TravelWeekly. The awards ceremony, which was held on Thursday, 17 July at The Marriott Hotel in Singapore, recognized the best in the Asian travel industry, acknowledging their contributions to tourism and hospitality.

Suvarnabhumi stands 6th in the 10 Most On-Time airports - ForbesTraveler

6. Suvarnabhumi International, Bangkok (BKK): 79.3% 6. Soekarno-Hatta International, Jakarta (CGK): 79.3% 8. Orlando International (MCO): 78.8% 9. Franz Josef Strauss Airport, Munich (MUC): 77.8% 10. George Bush Intercontinental, Houston (IAH): 77%

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