The Long Story Of The New Airport

[Darlek]

09 August 2004 0721 hrs

After 40 years Thailand's mega airport still struggling to materialise

BANGKOK : Plagued by allegations of cronyism and mismanagement throughout its history of more than 40 years, Thailand's still unfinished US$3.7b Suvarnabhumi Airport now has the country's flamboyant premier cracking the whip to get the project completed.

The long-delayed second international airport, which the Thai government last week conceded might not be finished in time for its planned September 2005 opening, has been bogged down since 1960 by political wrangling, corruption allegations and problems with the marshy site.

The airport -- about 25 kilometres (15.5 miles) east of the capital at Nong Ngu Hao, which means Cobra Swamp -- is touted as being Southeast Asia's largest and the government is banking on it making the kingdom the region's undisputed aviation hub.

Once completed, the first phase of Suvarnabhumi is expected to handle three million tonnes of cargo and accommodate up to 45 million passengers annually, which is 15 million more than Bangkok's Don Muang international airport can currently take.

It will also be the only airport in the country capable of handling Airbus' new 555-seater A380, and could potentially accommodate 100 million passengers a year once a planned fourth runway is completed.

But the airport -- often cited as a prime example of poor economic planning and management of large infrastructure projects in the kingdom -- has already passed through two initial deadlines, the first in 1990 and the second in 2000.

Construction only began in January 2002 and that year the International Air Transport Association ominously warned that while it calculated all new airports are 90 percent construction and 10 percent politics, "here in Bangkok it is 99 percent politics."

Since then allegations of mismanagement have only intensified, and Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra has now threatened state bans on the contractors if the airport is not finished in time.

"I told them that any contractor who delayed their job by more than eight percent would not be allowed other government contracts," Thaksin warned Saturday during his weekly national radio address.

"The more we delay the more we loose our chance of being the region's aviation hub," said Thaksin, adding he believed the project was currently between seven to eight percent behind schedule.

Italian-Thai Development Pcl, together with its partners Japan's Takenaka Corp. and Obayashi Corp. form the ITO joint-venture constructing the airport, which is financed mostly by the Japan Bank for International Cooperation and Airports of Thailand.

Investors signalled their lack of faith in the current deadline the day after an initial warning by Thaksin Thursday that Italian-Thai was on a government 'grey list,' which saw the company's stock fall to its lowest level since October 2003.

Italian-Thai finance vice-president Chatichai Chutima told AFP during a tour of the site it was design delays, such as the delivery of undersize materials, which had caused most of the hold-ups.

"It is an enormous project and we have had some fairly significant obstacles relating to design, especially with selecting the right materials," said Chatichai pointing to the curved steel and glass ceiling in one of the long oval-shaped concourses.

"At one point we had to replace all of those (thousands of steel bracing rods) because we found out they were below the size that we needed," he said.

Last year sub-contractors and suppliers privately complained they were holding out on work and the delivery of construction materials because they were not getting paid, and this was the prime cause of the delay.

But Italian-Thai president Premchai Karnasuta last Wednesday insisted those disputes had been finalised and the airport would be ready for its scheduled opening.

"We had a lot of hard and tough negotiations but all of those financial disputes have been settled," said Premchai.

Despite being just over a year away from opening, the enormous skeletal frame of Suvarnabhumi Airport's futuristic passenger terminal -- covering 536,000 square metres -- still sits at the end of a long dirt road surrounded by churned wasteland and mud.

Thaksin said he was concerned no deal had yet been signed which would see a sealed road built between the freeway and airport, saying the current arrangement would be "uncomfortable and undignified" for passengers.

A deal to connect the airport to the city with a rail link was finalised with the state-run Mass Rapid Transit Authority of Thailand in June and is expected to be operational by early 2006.

Critics of the futuristic airport -- designed by the US-based Murphy Jahn Consortium -- have said they are still concerned that by the time it is finished its capacity will already be outstripped by rising passenger and freight demand.

The long delay has also allowed neighbouring countries such as Singapore and Malaysia to better develop their potential to compete as rival regional aviation hubs.

- AFP