Suvarnabhumi Airport Plagued With Many Problems

[webfact]

Special Report: Suvarnabhumi Airport plagued with problems

After four years in operation, Suvarnabhumi International Airport, which has set its sight on being one of the top 10 best airports in the world still find itself plagued with many problems.

The airport, which had been on a drawing board for nearly four decades prior to its construction, has faced a series of problems since it was opened in 2006. Problems ranging from its policies, ticketing system, to luggage-checking equipment; to name a few, seem to raised many questions as to how the airport has been organized or should have been organized.

Suvarnabhumi has since its opening day encountered a number of other problems that have made many passengers think of the more convenient and comfortable of Don Mueang Airport. Hundreds of cabs, both legal and illegal, and tour guides have been drawn to the busy airport posing security threats to authorities as well as tourists.

To rub salt into the wound, in October of this year, the airport once again faced another trouble; this time over its parking system. 40-odd armed men seized the parking lots at the airport, demanding that the concessionaire, Parking Management, leave the premises, so that they could take over the operation. The Airports of Thailand (AOT) terminated the concession of Parking Management Company Ltd., after the incident, given it had badly damaged the agency’s reputation as well as the country in bad light in terms of security.

The AOT has re-opened the parking lots and taken charge of collecting parking fees itself. To prevent making the same mistakes Parking Management did, the AOT has now employed a Smart-Card parking-fee collecting system which enables it to work efficiently and error-free. Although the improvement has cost up to 100 million baht, the AOT is confident that it will take no longer than 4-5 years for the company to recoup the investment.

With all problems aside, question remains as to what really happened at the Airport; was it the mismanagement or corruption that caused the problems. The question has yet to be answered. But whatever the answer, the people of Thailand hope that the plan to make Suvarnabhumi one of the world’s best airports will not be put on the back burner.

-- NNT 2010-12-23

[apetley]

Rather than asking "was it the mismanagement or corruption that caused the problems" they should simply have stated "it was the mismanagement and corruption that caused the problems"

[mallyrd]

What a crock of sh-t, this report is ancient history.

[housepainter]

They work hand in hand corruptly handing out these concessions, taking the back handers, running the airport into the ground and then start bleating on about all the problems. They make the problems.

Who put King Power in there in the first place? Corrupt and rotten from the top down.

Taxi limo business, they simply transferred from Don Meung. Along with the same Mafia operators. Why was that?

Thais won't work efficiently or quickly, the queues to get in are endless, they don't have enough immigration staff sitting doing their jobs and there is no sense of the place working. It is like aimlessly wnadering through yet another shopping Mall. There is no sense of purpose about it.

The bottom line is that due to the numbers involved the place is seen as a cash cow. Hence it is stimied in corrupt practice and mis-management. Furthermore, people have been abducted from the concourse; people have been wrongly imprisoned by bogus police officers demanding money.

Now that ranks the place on a par with Somalia's Airport; the Sudanese Airport and those of Iraq and Aghnistan.

It looks like the inside of a factory with its air conditoning pipes, grey paint and bare concrete. It doesn't so much impress as depress.

Next.

[Cuchulainn]

I don't mind leaving from Suwannaboom but I dread arriving into it what with the long immigration queues, taxi touts and God knows what other evils lurking awaiting for you!!

[Carib]

This is discussing history, every airport had problems in the past. News must be slow.

[gemini81]

They work hand in hand corruptly handing out these concessions, taking the back handers, running the airport into the ground and then start bleating on about all the problems. They make the problems.

Who put King Power in there in the first place? Corrupt and rotten from the top down.

Taxi limo business, they simply transferred from Don Meung. Along with the same Mafia operators. Why was that?

Thais won't work efficiently or quickly, the queues to get in are endless, they don't have enough immigration staff sitting doing their jobs and there is no sense of the place working. It is like aimlessly wnadering through yet another shopping Mall. There is no sense of purpose about it.

The bottom line is that due to the numbers involved the place is seen as a cash cow. Hence it is stimied in corrupt praultctice and mis-management. Furthermore, people have been abducted from the concourse; people have been wrongly imprisoned by bogus police officers demanding money.

Now that ranks the place on a par with Somalia's Airport; the Sudanese Airport and those of Iraq and Aghnistan.

It looks like the inside of a factory with its air conditoning pipes, grey paint and bare concrete. It doesn't so much impress as depress.

Next.

that's 'cause developers and contractors didn't wanna touch any gov't project...you have to pay huge bribes to pass inspection...the budget was low, their profit lost, so the end result is you get a bare look with low cost material. i guess it is a stark reflection of thais and the lifestyle and culture, like it or not. had there been no bribes needing to be payed to pass the gov't building codes, the place would look nice and have had the profit in the hands of good contractors....

[k9inkrabi]

What a crock of sh-t, this report is ancient history.

Agreed, this is a useless rehash of long ago.

Reporter : Nithi Kaveevivitchai

News Date : 23 December 2010

Must be a slow day for Nithi to publish this rubbish.

I find that aside from the long walks to the gates the airport is quite efficient and there have been many "fixes" over the last year or two.

[tomyummer]

It all starts from the stupid spelling of the name itself.

[k9inkrabi]

It all starts from the stupid spelling of the name itself.

Well the King named the airport, so your post is out of line.

[Cuchulainn]

^ yes but not the spelling!

[tomyummer]

It all starts from the stupid spelling of the name itself.

Well the King named the airport, so your post is out of line.

Read more carefully....

There's no problem with the name. It's the direct English from Thai spelling translation which is stupid. Say it phonetically and it's not the same as the Thai. So much for branding. So, no, I'm not out of line.

[WilliaminBKK]

For all the haters, catch a flight to Manila---you will come back and kiss every employee at BKK.

[ginjag]

^ yes but not the spelling!

To give the airport a fabulous name would have been RAMA 9 Bangkok, But better it was never built, as was said by so many initially, to kick the air-force of Don/M. Would have given the room for a super Hub, with the rail and road links already there. But that was not going to be the case. This must rate as one of the biggest mafia controlled airports in the world. The "powers that built it" new why--it wasn,t cause it was needed, it was the massive rake offs. The total set up is sick, now this report--5555555555555555. It was expected to have megga problems from day 1. So surprise surprise.

[Jim's_a_Thai_Fox]

Must have been through the place 20 times and never had much a problem that it remains with me to this day ... I've had to sometimes wait hours getting into Oz/Sydney and when leaving Heathrow... it happens, I guess... Swampy's been no worse nor better.

[trainman34014]

For all the haters, catch a flight to Manila---you will come back and kiss every employee at BKK.

Only the Totty!!!

[a51mas]

It all starts from the stupid spelling of the name itself.

Yes, I am totally agree you should change your name.

[buckhumyai]

I was teaching English in Bangkok from 2003 - 2005 and one of our clients were the Japanese company who were building the airport. Their level of frustration was obvious as they were not permitted to do their jobs properly. For example, they would spend years carefully considering the tenders for the airport, only to be told which company they would use, regardless of whether their quote met specifications or not. One example that sticks in my mind is the air conditioning. Three quotes were submitted with only one, a German company meeting the necessary specs. They accepted the tender only to be told that they would have to use Company X. This was told to me first hand during a lesson, so it is not hearsay. Guess who owned 50% of the company they were made to use?

[brahmburgers]

Agree the spelling of the name is nutzoid. ....generates a snicker every time a farang says it to a Thai.

No mention in the OP about overly long waits for processing incoming passengers.

I agree Don Muang expanded & upgraded could have maintained the needs of Bkk's airport biz. The money saved could have been put to one or more of the following:

>>>> creating a system of dog shelters in Thailand

>>>> enabling hill tribers born in Thailand to get ID cards

>>>> less expensive school costs for children from poor families. Currently, each student has to purchase new uniforms, new books, new shoes, new backpacks, each year. Even in rich countries, school textbooks are handed down from one year's students to the next.

>>>> building at least one good sized park in Bkk, including bicycle and jogging trails off limits to motorbikes and vendors.

>>>> building a 6 meter high levee around Bkk with 154 massive pumps (ok, just kidding - seeing if you're listening).

This is discussing history, every airport had problems in the past. News must be slow.

Yes, other start up airports have their problems, but they probably also have management willing and able to deal sensibly and dynamically to try and fix them.

[Xangsamhua]

It all starts from the stupid spelling of the name itself.

Well the King named the airport, so your post is out of line.

Read more carefully....

There's no problem with the name. It's the direct English from Thai spelling translation which is stupid. Say it phonetically and it's not the same as the Thai. So much for branding. So, no, I'm not out of line.

The Lao went for phonetic transcription from Lao to Roman alpahabet; the Thais went for etymologically-based transcription (as the original forms are retained in written Thai). So romanised Lao transcription is closer to how the words are said, but romanised Thai is closer to how it was originally written (and said in ancient India), but very confusing for anyone who doesn't speak and read Thai.

[moe666]

I have been in and out of this airport several times and the waits at immigration are not that bad. The lines at the old airport were a lot worse. Why get upset about the taxi touts ignore them.

[BillR]

I enjoy the 5 mile walk to the international departure gates

[DLock]

I am through Suvarnabhumi 2 to 4 times a week.

The immigration lines can get tedious if a few planes land at once and I still don't understand why the majority of my landed flights have to use buses instead having an available gate.

But overall, I find the airport very good and have no real complaints.

There are much, much worse airports than Suvarnabhumi.

[lungmi]

It all starts from the stupid spelling of the name itself.

Well the King named the airport, so your post is out of line.

Read more carefully....

There's no problem with the name. It's the direct English from Thai spelling translation which is stupid. Say it phonetically and it's not the same as the Thai. So much for branding. So, no, I'm not out of line.

The Lao went for phonetic transcription from Lao to Roman alpahabet; the Thais went for etymologically-based transcription (as the original forms are retained in written Thai). So romanised Lao transcription is closer to how the words are said, but romanised Thai is closer to how it was originally written (and said in ancient India), but very confusing for anyone who doesn't speak and read Thai.

Thai linguists still not learn the difference between a phoneme and a grapheme. Anachronistic.

[jfchandler]

To those above complaining about the news report here, you ought to pay a bit more attention...

The item here isn't coming from the BKK Post or The Nation.... it's coming from the National News Bureau of Thailand, which is the government....

It's actually pretty interesting to see the government taking a swipe at the AOT and the various fools involved....

[sprq]

Everybody should note where this report comes from -- NNT -- which is a news service of the government's Public Relations Bureau. In that context:

1) it's remarkable that they put out such a negative report

2) it's poorly written, which reflects badly on the agency

3) its coverage is strangely limited and unbalanced

[asiawatcher]

Interesting - monopolies in transport, duty free, parking, grossly mismanaged external traffic ways, internal confusion from top to bottom on moving stairways unless you are a Airport pass holder, large (very expensive) signs that only exiting passengers can read from going past them, blocked exits every second door - so why have them - and so on. No - Swampy is nothing more than a mismanaged obviously corrupt, gateway into Thailand. Blame AOT - betcha-ass.

Edited December 24, 2010 by asiawatcher

[quandow]

I've used the airport since it opened, I've never had a problem. Now, AMERICAN airports are a different story . . .

[markt7081]

There is nothing too wrong with the design of the Airport, its the clowns which run it.(apart from the sonic the hedgehog escalators).

When meeting visitors, you are not allowed to stand by a convient door to collect them, Oh No lets make it hard & get all the greeters to cram into as small as space as possible.

Say gate 4.

Then what we will do is take away all the seats, so that everyone has to stand up (perfectly good seats removed)

Now the seats are gone, it exposes some plug sockets on the floor, better take them out, leave the hole & just tape over it.

Now thats better, we have people leaning on walls, squatting or sitting on the floor, and tripping over ,much more 3rd world, much better.

Now we stuffed up when we built it, we made all the signs multilingual, so anything we add or replace had better just be in Thai (there isnt going to be any farangs visiting an airport anyway is there?).

What can we do next??

I know, well we can cut the floor tiles (to lay a cable?) then just put a metal strip over the top, so we can trip people up, Oh and dont worry about the tile we cracked, just leave it.

For a 4 year old airport its a Complete joke, & thats just the meeting point

whats it going to look like in another 4 years.

[anterian]

Agreed there are worse airports, but that is missing the point, the Thais want their airport to be up with the best, in this it fails. It is the only Airport i know where the immigration staff do not speak English.