josephbloggs

There is some detail here: http://www.suvarnabhumiairport.com/business_phase2_en.php

Increased capacity comes from the new/planned mid-field satellite 1 concourse which looks to have ~ 30 fixed gates. There are lots of remote stands already. Maybe best to just build satellite 2 (further to the south) at the same time? Not sure at what point two runways, with limited take-offs/landings starts to become the short-straw? They have, at most currently, dual operation (take-offs and landings) on one runway, and single operation on the parallel runway, at any one time. During dry season not so much an issue, but during rainy season things can get stretched out a bit.

I think there were some issues with one of the runways at DMK, which might require a significant repair. Does anyone know if they are using both runways at DMK currently? And i think the runways at DMK are too close together for simultaneous, dual operation?

HI Lomatopo,

Thanks for the info. Unfortunately two of your links (satellite 1 and satellite 2) take you to eBay. Don't worry, I haven't bid against you.

I

New rolling stock from 2014

The SRT was granted money in May (4.2 billion baht) to purchase 7 new 4-car Cityline trains and if they ordered them on time they should be in service by 2014.

A year on and the purchase has been delayed due to the NESDB stating that the purchase price was too high - I also just noticed that I previously wrote 4.2 billion when it should have been 5.2 billion! Apols.

NESDB suggest purchasing cheaper CNR rolling stock but that would mean replacing the signalling system which is Siemens specific. Thus, Siemens has offered 10, 3 car sets at the same price (essentially 2 extra cars for the same price).

We'll see what the final decision is but highly doubtful that there will be any new rolling stock prior to early 2015 at this rate.

Hi LG,

Thanks for the info. I'd say rolling stock is the least of their worries though. I haven't used the system since I became frustrated with the slow speed but it appears they are still operating at 80 km/h. Is there any end to the track problem in sight? Obviously it will take some time if they have to replace the turnouts (points?) or grind the whole length, but will the speed eventually have to be reduced further if nothing happens to improve the track condition?

And how come I haven't seen anything about this in the press at all? Surely a cock-up on this scale is newsworthy? Even the letters pages of the papers haven't seen mention of it and people are normally not slow to grumble.

By stating the numbers charged have increased more than last year does not absolve the overall lack of policing. And I will bet these numbers are deliberately understated as those in critical condition whose demise may follow will not hit the list.

they count only the deads on the spot,the injured dying 10 minutes later in a taxi or hospital are not counted!

How do you know this? Please tell.

I understand your problem.

I have lived in Don Meuang for the past six years and even now, when I tell someone where I live, I sometimes get a blank look back. Pronunciation has to be spot on, otherwise you might as well be talking Swahili.

That's a ridiculous statement. It clearly wasn't a misunderstanding, the evil cabbie was trying to rip off the foreigner because that's what all Thais do, don't cha know? He asked for the airport and got taken to........the airport. Obvious conspiracy, obvious scam. Detestable Thais.

Honestly reading some of those comments makes me almost pity the posters.

You are absolutely correct in that in Thai, if your pronunciation is a little off, they genuinely don't understand you. Why do people on this site see conspiracies and rip-offs everywhere when often they clearly don't exist?

Travel a couple of times a month through it... It definitely improved 200% since the budget crap has been moved out.

It's a breeze, takes me about 20 minutes getting out of the taxi all the way through immigration.

Internet check in...quick check at the scanners...10 minutes max at immigration.

Consistently, every time.

For me, real winner now compared to a year ago.

20 minutes? What about when they bus you from a parked plane in the middle of nowhere?

What about when the plane does park at the very far end of the airport? I was at a gate last week that I've never been to and I'd swear I took every possible tread to get to immigration.

Once I got to immigration, the queue of Chinese and Russian tourists were weaving all the way through the line guides. It would have been atleast an hour.

Fortunately I saw a Thai friend of mine and jumped in with his group and went through the Thai queue.

Point is that the immigration lines are the holdup. Sometimes if you run quick, you can get in a queue with just 3-4 people. Late night landings are the worst as there is always a queue.

Waiting for luggage? Good luck getting out in less than 45 minutes.

Singapore, Hong Kong, always on time, always clean, and people movers (ie trains)

Why the AOT would even bother accepting this award from a no-name website is beyond me. Maybe someone's bonus hinges on it?

Honestly I don't understand how some people can whinge so much about things that really are not whingeworthy at all. It's not as though walks and occasional queues are exclusive to SVB and don't afflict other airports. And last time I was in the airport they did have moving walkways. Have they been removed now?

I flew in a week or so ago and was greeted by a long snaking queue at immigration and I feared the worst but - if you'd stuck around - you'd have seen that it moves pretty swiftly these days and I was through in less than 20 minutes. It looked like an hour's worth of queue! There are also people checking everyone's forms now BEFORE they reach the desk so that weeds out the inexperienced and helps keep things moving. From what it used to be like how about giving credit where it's due and say things are much much improved and that they've done a god job. But nah, we're on TV here, that can never happen.

My bags took a further five minutes and I was on my way home. I have never been left waiting more than ten minutes for my bags, maybe I'm just lucky.

I do agree about being bussed to/from aircraft - I hate that - but that is up to the airline concerned. And, guess what, they also do that in Hong Kong!

Best? Maybe best in Indochina region but there is no way it can beat Korea......

I never been to Korea so I can't evaluate their Airport.....

What a fantastic comment, thank you.

Anything else you'd like to rate that you've never seen, experienced or been to?

I made another RT Saturday on ARL from Makkasan to Huamak....leaving around 10 am and returning around noon.

The City Line train was reasonably full on the way out, and packed sardine can full on the way back.

On one of the segments, while the train was moving at full speed between stations, there were two really loud and sharp metallic BANG sounds within a few seconds of each other. It kind of sounded like the train had run over something to make that noise.

And on a couple of the station departures, the train took a pretty good jolt as it transitioned from the station track area out onto the main track line.

Those two sharp bangs have always been there. They even have signs on the trains (small ones) to say not to worry about that noise because it's normal. In fact I asked about it here about a year ago but never got any satisfactory answer about what causes it. I'd still really like to know.

Here's the link.

www.irrawaddy.org/archives/9460

best article I have read on swampy, runway closures are major problem.

I have to disagree - I think it's a terrible article as it contains little of any substance. I'm no great lover of SVB but I use it often and I think it is "ok". I've been to many better airports and I've been to many more worse ones. But apart from the issue of cracks what does the article tell us?

"Some passengers were forced to wait up to four hours for their baggage to appear on the day it was inaugurated." Wow, some passengers waited four hours for their bags on a single day SIX years ago!! Check out what happened to Hong Kong airport on its opening day, likewise Heathrow Terminal 5. Seriously, putting something like that in an article shows extreme bias in my opinion.

Then they go on to quote some conjecture by an anonymous man on an internet forum - or "an engineer on the Thai Visa Forum website" as they put it. Again, irrelevant and exceedingly sloppy journalism. Whatever happened to checking your sources?

They then described an incident that caused four flights to be delayed.

The rest of the article is then devoted to passenger comments and some untrue statements. A passenger doesn't like it because there are long walks. Yes, it is a big airport. Believe it or not you also have to walk long distances at other large airports. Another passenger says the restaurants are not diverse enough and are "tucked away". Oh, poor him.

It then goes on to describe how a plane had to circle for an hour! The horror! SVB has two runways and does get very busy. On my last trip back to the UK I had to circle for close to 90 minutes but, guess what, nobody interviewed me about it. It happens.

Sorry, that was one of the worst articles I have read. Devoting so much space to conjecture, opinion and quotes from internet forums - especially this one! - is not a good example of journalism at all; far from it.

SVB does have it's problems and I do believe (not that I know) that the runways and taxiways were badly constructed. But this article is so slanted it should have been written in italics.

King power in so many cases are NOT duty free, local shops are cheaper, the rip off starts on arrival and ends on departure with them. What they want is serious competition. example 7-11 1 or 2 bht dearer but what a business they do, they stopped many overcharging.

Just to add Udon airport 1 bag of LAY--potato crisps marked at 20 bht (pepsi Co ) sold at 35 bht--the lady said it's because it's the airport Ha Ha. same as airport can of coke buy in at 11 bht---shop price about 15 bht airport price 50 bht, <deleted>

Yes, I agree completely. I remember retail prices at DMK used to be expensive so I was looking forward to a change and genuine competition when SVB opened........but the AoT in all their wisdom handed control of ALL commercial space to King Power. Ridiculous really.

Many years ago retail prices at Heathrow were much higher than Central London. Books, confectionary, beer etc. If I remember correctly a law was passed that effectively ended this practice. I would love such a thing to happen here but it is highly unlikely.

Why DMK? Because it isn't a great sterile shopping mall. Because when you arrive it smells like Thailand should smell rather than smelling like all the other 'international' airports.

Ah, yes, Don Muang smelt like Thailand and not like an airport. Of course. Food stalls, grilled chicken, traffic fumes, sewage....all of those things noticeably absent from the airport that had some trolleys and duty free shops to smell.

I stick with the nostalgia explanation - your post just backs that up for me.

Cheers.

Yes! Love Don Muang.

There are numerous posts like this. I just don't understand why people harp on about the good old days with DM being a far better airport. How quickly people forget. It was a horrible, dreadful airport. Too far away, horrible parking facilities, no mass transit option (I'm not counting Don Muang railway station), dark and dingy, terrible food and beverage outlets. It was awful.

In every respect SVB is a far superior airport. Seriously, why the love for DMK? (I'm willing to bet that at least half the people on here who slate SVB and wish for the good old days of DMK used to slag the hell out of DMK when it was our sole airport).

Perhaps it's because the Thailand we were flying into was simpler & more-exotic, less overcrowded & overpolluted, than it now is. And we'd love to go back to those days. Simple nostaligia in fact.

I certainly feel that way myself, without for-a-moment begrudging the Thai people the material-benefits, of modern 'civilised' life.

I think you've hit the nail on the head. Of course it is entirely subjective but for me it is nostalgia plain and simple. Any logical arguments (not that I've seen any yet) just don't stack up.

I've lived here over 18 years and I used to hate DM - I couldn't wait for SVB to open. For me DMK was one of the worst airports of any major capital I'd been to.

But, each to their own.

Yes! Love Don Muang.

There are numerous posts like this. I just don't understand why people harp on about the good old days with DM being a far better airport. How quickly people forget. It was a horrible, dreadful airport. Too far away, horrible parking facilities, no mass transit option (I'm not counting Don Muang railway station), dark and dingy, terrible food and beverage outlets. It was awful.

In every respect SVB is a far superior airport. Seriously, why the love for DMK? (I'm willing to bet that at least half the people on here who slate SVB and wish for the good old days of DMK used to slag the hell out of DMK when it was our sole airport).

I have many fond memories of DMK, that great bar on the 1st floor,they brewed their own beer, Swampy always feels threatening, with it's frighteningly designed stainless steal ceilings. I never slagged DMK off and used to travel too and from there for more than 15 years. I LOVE DMK!

I will definitely agree with you on the microbrewery. At the end of Terminal 2, it was a great place to have a few pre (or post) flight beers. The Billy Bentley between the two terminals was also a pretty decent place to have a drink. SVB definitely lacks a good pub.

Having said that, once you went through immigration there were pretty slim pickings.

Yes! Love Don Muang.

There are numerous posts like this. I just don't understand why people harp on about the good old days with DM being a far better airport. How quickly people forget. It was a horrible, dreadful airport. Too far away, horrible parking facilities, no mass transit option (I'm not counting Don Muang railway station), dark and dingy, terrible food and beverage outlets. It was awful.

At least you didn't have to walk 2 miles through a shopping mall to get to your gate. WiFi actually worked in the gate area. Air conditioning actually worked in the gate area.

Sorry but the "shopping mall" thing does not stack up as an argument. DMK had plenty of duty free shops back in the day - run by King Power no less - and pretty much every major airport in the world is littered with them. SVB is no different in this respect.

You didn't have to worry about a fake arrest/extortion scam if you were window shopping while waiting for your flight.

Ah, yes, that old chestnut. Before I go on, has anybody here ever fallen victim to this "scam"? Does anybody know anybody who has? I read the same story you did about the old couple who were "arrested" and seemingly extorted. I'm not saying they weren't extorted - they almost certainly were. But didn't King Power release CCTV footage which actually showed them shoplifting?

Again, I'm not saying the scam didn't happen - I can easily believe it did - but making it sound as though it's something that happens regularly to people is simply ridiculous. It doesn't. Oh, and King Power - the people who extort people for window shopping in your mind - also run (and ran) the duty free outlets at DMK, so please explain how that makes DMK a better airport.

Let's not forget the taxi mafia was far far worse at DMK - you were practically swamped with people hassling you when you exited. It was awful.

Thanks for the update and the pics LG.

The minor issues of the concern regarding escalators, minor compared to the track issue (btw, I have some more info on that to post in a day or so)

Really looking forward to that post!

Cheers.

So what is going on? I have asked a thai rail person to query the exact issue.

And I received a most prompt reply......

The max operating speed has been reduced to 80kph due to the fact that the track is degrading quicker than it should due to over usage and a lack of appropriate maintenance leading to roughness and in some cases some cracked rail. This has a greater impact upon the turnouts and is reporting leading to some cracking primarily at turnouts - which ultimately could cause a derailment at a turnout.

The SRTET needs to purchase a new rail grinding maintenance vehicle to smooth the track & turnouts AND/OR in the long term replace the whole track.

I am a bit surprised by this as the track is rated at 60 and I would have thought it would be very durable for this line.

No prices for guessing in which country the track and turnouts were manufactured.....

Wow, I was expecting some kind of maintenance issue but that has genuinely shocked me. "Over usage" from four/five trains an hour for the last two years?? Shocking.

Coupled with the rapidly deteriorating condition of Makkasan station, the walkway going up with no escalators and the future for the line looks bleak. I have staunchly defended it in the past and always maintained that Makkasan was not a white elephant and all would come good in the end. But now I'm not so sure.

And the SRT might get their mits on a couple of other mass transit routes too? Heaven forbid.

My days of using the ARL are certainly over for the foreseeable future.

It honestly doesn't look like those stairs are currently designed to accommodate escalators. But maybe we're not seeing the whole picture, so to speak?

I timed the City Line trains earlier in the week and would say that actual elapsed times are about 40 - 45 % longer than the schedule reflects. My sample size was "two trips", so hardly definitive.

Not definitive, but is backed up by all my recent experiences. It's been like that for a couple of months I'd say so maybe it is a deeper problem than a lack of spare parts?

Will be very interested to find out what they're really doing with the stairs/escalators issue on the Makkasan walkway.

I was by Makkasan today, and it looked like there will be at least two entrances to the elevated walkway

--one at the corner where the ARL Makkasan Station is located.

--the other across the other side of Asoke Road where the MRT is located.

Here's what the ARL corner stairs/walkup looked like today:

2013-03-21 12.23.45.jpg 2013-03-21 12.24.01.jpg

Here's what the MRT stairs/walkup looked like today:

2013-03-21 12.30.01.jpg 2013-03-21 12.30.06.jpg

I walk the portion between Makassan and Petchaburi MRT on most days. This new walkway will eliminate approximately 200 meters of walking between the two stations - that's a step in the right direct. However, the way the new overhead walkway is configured, it makes a turn to the left when walking toward MRT and then down to the street. My question is why doesn't turn to the right, toward MRT? True, it would need to extend over the railroad tracks and four-lane road, but shouldn't sort of be the point, eliminate the need for pedestrians to cross roadtracks and a busy road?

Right now, everyone coming and going must cross railroad tracks and a very busy street. Turning the overhead walkway toward MRT over these would make the walked infinitely better. However, it isn't, and the current configuration turns pedestrians away from the station putting them on a narrow, poorly-maintained sidewalk and now will need to cross the service road for Makkassan, along with tracks and other roadway.

Eh? It does turn towards the MRT and will drop you where the small car park used to be next to the MRT entrance. So it does cross Ratchada road and the railway tracks. All in all a massive step (actually many steps) in the right direction. But please please please let there be escalators. That will be a horrendous mistake if there won't be any.

Well it's a couple of years since I last travelled with a baby's bottle but there was no problem. We had a pre made bottle and a couple of other bottles of just boiled water. They made us take a sip of each one at security and then that was it. The same at Heathrow coming back.

It's very common.

I can't agree with the 50% longer journey guesstimate. Might be adding on 3-5 mins extra but no where near 12 mins extra. Though, do feel free to time it......

I've noticed that for the past few weeks the trains have all been running at a much reduced speed - it feels like almost half their old speed. Does anyone know the reason for this? It's pretty frustrating.

I'm guess it's due to some sort of (lack of) maintenance issue??

Yes I have noticed the same the last couple of times and given that the SRTET has reduced schedules due to insufficient rolling stock availability arising from some reoccurring maintenance problems this reason would seem to make sense?

Is this the Express or City Line, or both?

I assume this makes the end-end trips what 50% longer in minutes? More?

Obviously stairs only on the passenger link would be a huge safety concern what with people hoisting 25 kg luggage up/down stairs. It probably looks like stairs now but I think they'll have two escalators? Given how they've had to thread this walkway it already looks like some sort of Disney ride.

Hi,

I haven't been on the express for a long time so can't say for sure but I live near the line and they "look" to be going slowly too. I don't use the line "end to end" but I would say the journey time must be 50% longer. I don't think I'm going to bother with it again until I notice they're back at full speed - it's just too frustrating otherwise and no longer offers the benefit it used to.

Regarding the disney ride MRT link, I want to point out that it only looked like stairs only last night (but it was dark and I was on the opposite side of the road), I'm not 100% sure, so don't take that as gospel.

Also, I've been a staunch defender of the ARL all along and think it has been much maligned (unfairly) but today I really noticed that Makkasan station is becoming delapidated. Toilets out of order, plaster and paint peeling off, escalators taped off and not working. Coupled with the terribly slow running speed of the trains I fear for the service now.

Plus I saw the link to Petchaburi MRT is coming along really well but it looks like there will only be stairs at the MRT end! Nooooooo!! I didn't get to have a good look so I hope I'm wrong.

Is it just reverting true to SRT form after a promising start? Can it not be taken off that incompetent agency and privatised?

I used it again tonight and it seemed worse - even slower than the Skytrain. I would estimate no more than 60kph.

I use it a lot but I'm not going to bother any more, it's quicker for me to get a taxi now, especially if I time it wrong and just miss one.

I've noticed that for the past few weeks the trains have all been running at a much reduced speed - it feels like almost half their old speed. Does anyone know the reason for this? It's pretty frustrating.

I'm guess it's due to some sort of (lack of) maintenance issue??

When my company pays invoices to Australia, we pay the invoice amount less the 15%, and the Australian company claims it back on their tax. This is allowed because of the tax treaty between Australia and Thailand.

You should ask the German company how they deal with it.

It turns out that Germany and Thailand have signed a "double tax" treaty and so the transaction is exempt from 15% withholding tax. We do have to pay 7% VAT however, but this can be claimed back.

Woop!