Any Doubters About The Airport Opening Tomorrow?

[Soju]

When the September 28, 2006 opening date for Suvarnabhumi was announced several months ago, a lot of us had doubts that it would really open tomorrow, myself included. I think it is only natural to doubt the projected opening date of any major construction project anywhere in the world as usually the opening date slips several times and Suvarnabhumi's schedule proved again and again to be overly optimistic. By July, I started coming around to believing the opening would really happen on schedule. Britmaveric has been one of the last holdouts I've seen, and still professes to have serious doubts about the airport opening. With now less than 12 hours to opening, does anyone else here still have doubts? Or anyone think it will open but not fully and/or need to close down after opening, thus requiring Don Muang to remain open? Britmaveric, last chance...do you really think that Suvarnabhumi isn't going to open tomorrow?

[ovenman]

I was at Suvarnabhumi Airport on Tuesday the 26th, connecting on AirAsia flights. I can't see why it won't be able to open on Thursday as scheduled, but unless they busted a lot of ass getting things done in the remaining two days, it's not 100% ready. They should have waited and opened for the King's birthday in December.

[Losangels]

Wife just flew in to Don Muang today, apart from having difficulty finding a trolley for luggages and taxis charging extra 50 baht for the trip on top of the 50 baht charged at the taxi counter, nothing much has change to indicate the major movements of things to the new airport. Several staff at the airport she talked to seem to doubt that evey thing that needs to go can be done in less than 12 hours. The staff were not briefed about the details and many seem not knowing much My opinion is that the new airport will open but for limited international flights. What was all the fuss about the international avaiation body that was supposed to give an approval to open?

[britmaveric]

Wife just flew in to Don Muang today, apart from having difficulty finding a trolley for luggages and taxis charging extra 50 baht for the trip on top of the 50 baht charged at the taxi counter, nothing much has change to indicate the major movements of things to the new airport. Several staff at the airport she talked to seem to doubt that evey thing that needs to go can be done in less than 12 hours. The staff were not briefed about the details and many seem not knowing much My opinion is that the new airport will open but for limited international flights. What was all the fuss about the international avaiation body that was supposed to give an approval to open?

Exactly - there has been literally no movement from most of the major airlines. You have to ask yourself why???

Then again if I am wrong and DM closes tomorrow then so be it. However you can understand why heaps of think DM will still be open, if past history is an indicator.

[rustyhelms]

Apart from Thai catering that still needs to use facility at Don Muang as its main production plant, also not all aeroplanes can be moved from Don Muang tonight due to technical problems,not in flyable condition.

Without proper mass transportations,high speed rail link etc.from the city there'll be roughly 4000 cars each hour carrying passengers for a minimum of 10 flights per hour; plus other trucks that share the same back and front roads of Suvanabhumi airport toward eastern seaboard.

Watch this space...it's going to be a real nightmare

[Plus]

People who had doubts, like myself, were talking about airport being ready to open. We had doubts in dates, but that was not all.

What actually happened is that the worst doubts - they'd open airport half-ready, came true. For a long time I refused to believe that Thais will not come to their senses and open the airport no matter what. I was wrong and politics came first. When the date was set and it was too late to change it, sometimes during this month, I resigned.

Let's just cross our fingers and hope that nothing really tragic happen there. And of course we reserve the right to gloat over every reported porblem from now until December, as in "We told you so".

The way they "opened" it tonight is the same they declared it ready last year, or last July. In today's BP Database they wrote that for the project of this size "ready" means all stakeholders report that they are ready. It didn't happen.

They just hope that when things go wrong, and they will, gods will guide them through emergency procedures such as manually sorting out the luggage and manually writing boarding passes. In the end they compromised safety, hoping that the built-in fool-proof buffer would allow them to avoid a major disaster. It's like knock off - the planes can fly, it looks good, so what if it's not the real thing. All those extra safety double checks are not necessary.

[Belfastboy]

me thinks it will be delayed...after all it's thai time here we are talking about, they prob mean 28th sept NEXT year..!

poor old Thaksin, 2 weeks ago i watched him being interviewed on CNN Business Traveller in regards to the new aiport, and was questioned about the delays and the 28th september...he promised the interviewer a personal tour if it opened up on time....how things change...

for the worse IMO

[britmaveric]

Well looks like I am wrong!! Just received an email stating I'll be using the new airport. heheh Oh well least I know for sure now. This was my only gripe really, now hopefully the kinks will be worked out and all will be safe.