Transport Ministry Still Aims To Make Suvarnabhumi Airport Into Regional Aviation Hub

[airconsult]

Surely it's already a hub. Try flying to most cities in the immediate region of Thailand from Europe (Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Myanmar). Chances are you will end up changing in Swampy.

If they want to increase traffic as a hub they should focus on getting more routes out of Swampy and into regional cities (not just the capitals) in those countries and they should start putting some pressure on the routes where monopoly predatory pricing is applied - eg Bangkok Airways to Siem Reap.

I have used Swampy extensively since it opened. The immigration queues were quite ok by international standards 5 years ago - I travelled on biusiness a lot back then. Now they are a joke (my last arrival I finally made it into the plus 1 hour category) and becoming a serious deterrent to business and holiday travel into the country, although normal holidaymakers are less sensitive to this than the lucrative business conference/exhibition trade.

So easy to fix the simple things. Yes Changi is world class and will be difficult to beat. I don't see it as impossible for Thailand to get somewhere up there though if those in charge are prepared to take the cultural blinkers off.

I agree, what many people forget when they complain about long wait times is that the traffic growth was as expected, but airport expansion was continually delayed by (polite term here) civil unrest since 2006. The fact is that the initial phase was meant to cater to 45 million passengers annually - and it is just above that now.

As far as the excessive baggage wait times...... this should have been fixed a long time ago, there are identified problems with the system, however a planned set of improvements are proceeding slowly along - it does not affect all flights, mostly in peak periods when the system is at max capacity and then breakdowns occur.

In an ideal world the original timeline would have been followed, and the second terminal would have been completed this year, along with the 3rd runway - unfortunately that's just starting now.... so perhaps another 6 years of overcrowding to go.

Cheers

[airconsult]

I feel that they also have to address the monorail link to/from the airport. Looks to be a great mode of transport for people going to/from work or people living on the outskirts heading into BKK. If you have a lot of baggage/cases etc. then it gets really painful when having to change over at Makkassan. One has to get out of the station and walk to the main road, cross the rail lines then another 100 yds on to the underground. I did this journey last Friday morning, time wise it did beat coming in from the airport in the traffic, but I found it a real pain and that was without any baggage. Why didn't they build a footbridge from the alight platform direct to the subway station, then an escalator down?

I arrived in BKK on the Saturday morning a week or so ago, and the queue at the immigration areas was the worst I have ever seen since the airport had been opened, one of them had people backing out down the slope onto the main concourse, absolutely horrendous.

Regional Hub............I'm afraid not.

(wince) My sympathies...... I'm afraid that after 6 years of contract disagreements between the Transport Ministry and the major operators of mass transit in BKK (BTS, MRT, SRT) - The ministry handled the construction and purchasing itself, and along the way, the operators were "less than enthusiastic" in cooperating - right down to blocking the original connecting tunnel to MRT at Makkasan, and delaying the connecting bridge at Phaya Thai.

Now that an operator has been selected (SRT-ET), they are gradually drawing up plans and budget to fix the makkasan problems, and improve the taxi/bus connections. This is Thailand, so it's proceeding slowly, with 60 meetings just to determine the tile colour to use on the footbridge, but it will happen eventually.....