Not Enough Gates At The Terminal?

[wpcoe]

There was a full-page article in The Nation by a reporter taking a TG morning flight to SIN:

"Fast forward through the security check and on to gate E1a on the third floor, a floor down from the departure hall.

...

Bigger piles of litter, including cigarette butts and coffee cans, greeted us as we boarded a shuttle bus to the Airbus 300."

The brand new airport uses SATELLITE PARKING!?! Aren't there something like 120 gates, but a TG international flight in the early morning needs a "bus gate"?

[skippybangkok]

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/index.php?sh...mp;#entry919749

i think he was on the same flight

[Maestro]

The brand new airport uses SATELLITE PARKING!?! Aren't there something like 120 gates, but a TG international flight in the early morning needs a "bus gate"?

I read in another thread that TG does it to save money, that it is not a question of insufficient gates at finger docks.

---------------

Maestro

[tjo o tjim]

The airport was originally designed with a center concourse finger, but it was eliminated (among other reasons) due to pressure from TG. Bus gates were actually added pretty late in the design.

[wpcoe]

I read in another thread that TG does it to save money, that it is not a question of insufficient gates at finger docks.

Fairly stunning bit of TG marketing, then. Competing with SQ on a busy intra-asia market, and they choose to scrimp and put people on buses?

[wpcoe]

The airport was originally designed with a center concourse finger, but it was eliminated (among other reasons) due to pressure from TG. Bus gates were actually added pretty late in the design.

Interesting. I wonder if the option was retained to be able to add that center concourse later if/when passenger volumes increase, without major inconvenience to the rest of the airport?

[Erwin1011]

I read in another thread that TG does it to save money, that it is not a question of insufficient gates at finger docks.

Fairly stunning bit of TG marketing, then. Competing with SQ on a busy intra-asia market, and they choose to scrimp and put people on buses?

The airport was originally designed with a center concourse finger, but it was eliminated (among other reasons) due to pressure from TG. Bus gates were actually added pretty late in the design.

Somebody just needed an extra bukc of commission on the additional buses...

[RBWilson]

Early AM and Late PM domestic flights on TG often do not use a gate - was true at Don Muang also. Economizing by not towing the plane I assume, and avoiding the gate fees charged by AOT. Of course this delays baggage claims on arriving flights also. At Don Muang I had frequently arrived on a late domestic flight - the plane invariably was parked beyond the International terminal in the maintenance area. This delayed the entire arrival process, with checked bags, by at least 30-40 minutes. At the same time I would observe NOK air and Air Asia planes, arriving from the same city, parked at the gates. I have often been put on a bus on TG International flights as well, with dozens of unused gates. Has anyone ever been put on a bus at Hong Kong or Singapore? I have not.

Edited September 30, 2006 by RBWilson

[ourmanflint]

Early AM and Late PM domestic flights on TG often do not use a gate - was true at Don Muang also. Economizing by not towing the plane I assume, and avoiding the gate fees charged by AOT.

this is true... flew this morning at 7.25 am and the worse thing was definitely having to wait on the very cramped bus, standing, for 10 minutes whilst they waited for everyone to check in at the gate, a really stupid system if you ask me. The new buses are very badly designed as well.

[lomatopo]

The old airport (Don Muang) has a total of 95 gates: 33 fixed (25 for int'l., 8 for domestic) and 62 remote.

The new airport (Suvarnabhumi) has a total of 120 gates: 51 fixed and 69 remote.

Not sure why people prattle on so about such a topic as there are 26% more gates to handle the same traffic. (Traffic is admittedly increasing although not many carriers are adding additional flights now.)

There are plans to add a low cost carrier terminal in the future.

In some cases I prefer a remote or bus gate as it drops you off right at Immigration, instead of walking several Km.

I fly through FRA frequently so am used to remote gates.

By far the biggest problem is for the elderly and infirmed as they have to negotiate stairs, potentially in a tropical downpour.

[Soju]

The old airport (Don Muang) has a total of 95 gates: 33 fixed (25 for int'l., 8 for domestic) and 62 remote.

The new airport (Suvarnabhumi) has a total of 120 gates: 51 fixed and 69 remote.

Not sure why people prattle on so about such a topic as there are 26% more gates to handle the same traffic. (Traffic is admittedly increasing although not many carriers are adding additional flights now.)

There are plans to add a low cost carrier terminal in the future.

In some cases I prefer a remote or bus gate as it drops you off right at Immigration, instead of walking several Km.

I fly through FRA frequently so am used to remote gates.

By far the biggest problem is for the elderly and infirmed as they have to negotiate stairs, potentially in a tropical downpour.

Thanks for those statistics. I was looking for that information on Don Muang but couldn't find it.

I've made 4 trips through Suvarnabhumi since it first opened last week. Everytime there were many open contact gates. Many more than I ever saw at Don Muang. Yesterday evening, on departing the domestic gates, the entire domestic terminal was completely empty of planes at the contact gates. Then moments later a Nok bird arrived. IMHO there is absolutely no problems with lack of contact gates at Suvarnabhumi. If the airlines are using remote parking and buses, there is another reason. Either by choice of the airlines, or perhaps due to problems with the gates themselves, or internal problems in the airport, or some sort of scheduling problems, or lack of enough gates assigned to a particular airline.

I saw that Hong Kong has only 49 contact gates, so Suvarnabhumi has more than Hong Kong.

Edited October 2, 2006 by Soju

[Soju]

Early AM and Late PM domestic flights on TG often do not use a gate - was true at Don Muang also. Economizing by not towing the plane I assume, and avoiding the gate fees charged by AOT. Of course this delays baggage claims on arriving flights also. At Don Muang I had frequently arrived on a late domestic flight - the plane invariably was parked beyond the International terminal in the maintenance area. This delayed the entire arrival process, with checked bags, by at least 30-40 minutes. At the same time I would observe NOK air and Air Asia planes, arriving from the same city, parked at the gates. I have often been put on a bus on TG International flights as well, with dozens of unused gates. Has anyone ever been put on a bus at Hong Kong or Singapore? I have not.

I flew THAI very frequently out of Don Muang - up to 10 times a month. My experience is different than yours. I never recall seeing any Air Asia planes parked at the contact gates. Without exception they always used remote parking. I don't think I ever saw a Nok Air plane using a contact gate. Certainly I've flown them many, many times and every time they used buses. I wouldn't be surprised if they did use the contact gates occasionally, but certainly a majority of their flights used remote parking from my experience. Regarding Air Asia, are you sure they were using contact gates? I find that very hard to believe given their business plan. I've even read that they purposely use remote parking, not only to save money, but as part of their strategy for quick turn-around times. I don't believe they want to use contact gates unless they were forced to due to some unusualy circumstance. On domestic flights, I only once used a bus with THAI, that being the last flight of the day from Chiang Mai, when I assume that aircraft have already arrived from the other domestic flights and used up all the contact gates. I don't normally arrive late at night, so you may be right about them often using buses at that time. Early morning, I've taken many flights and never been bused. Perhaps it is a certain flight or flights that get bused due to lack of contact gates at that time.

Internationally I've never been bused on arrival, but it was normal for departing when I depart late night (23:00 - 24:00). This seems to be a very busy time for departing aircraft, being many people like night flights where they can sleep. I believe the aircraft being used landed about 16:00, so expecting that aircraft to remain at the gate for over 7 hours was not reasonable to expect given the lack of enough contact gates at Don Muang. I always hated to be bused at Don Muang, especially on internation flights. The bus gate was at the far end of the international terminal, and the plane was always parked way beyond the domestic terminal. If you weren't lucky enough to get a seat, it meant standing on the bus for a good 20 minutes, sometimes up to 30 minutes. Probably 80% or more of the time I departed at that time I got buses, so I'm hoping my flight next week at that time will use a contact gate.

I don't have any first hand knowledge of THAI operations, but based on my experiences I don't know that I accept your statement that THAI doesn't use contact gates in order to economize. Is this just your interpretation of events, or did you actually hear that from THAI or from someone who has first-hand knowledge of their operations?

[RBWilson]

Early AM and Late PM domestic flights on TG often do not use a gate - was true at Don Muang also. Economizing by not towing the plane I assume, and avoiding the gate fees charged by AOT. Of course this delays baggage claims on arriving flights also. At Don Muang I had frequently arrived on a late domestic flight - the plane invariably was parked beyond the International terminal in the maintenance area. This delayed the entire arrival process, with checked bags, by at least 30-40 minutes. At the same time I would observe NOK air and Air Asia planes, arriving from the same city, parked at the gates. I have often been put on a bus on TG International flights as well, with dozens of unused gates. Has anyone ever been put on a bus at Hong Kong or Singapore? I have not.

I flew THAI very frequently out of Don Muang - up to 10 times a month. My experience is different than yours. I never recall seeing any Air Asia planes parked at the contact gates. Without exception they always used remote parking. I don't think I ever saw a Nok Air plane using a contact gate. Certainly I've flown them many, many times and every time they used buses. I wouldn't be surprised if they did use the contact gates occasionally, but certainly a majority of their flights used remote parking from my experience. Regarding Air Asia, are you sure they were using contact gates? I find that very hard to believe given their business plan. I've even read that they purposely use remote parking, not only to save money, but as part of their strategy for quick turn-around times. I don't believe they want to use contact gates unless they were forced to due to some unusualy circumstance. On domestic flights, I only once used a bus with THAI, that being the last flight of the day from Chiang Mai, when I assume that aircraft have already arrived from the other domestic flights and used up all the contact gates. I don't normally arrive late at night, so you may be right about them often using buses at that time. Early morning, I've taken many flights and never been bused. Perhaps it is a certain flight or flights that get bused due to lack of contact gates at that time.

Internationally I've never been bused on arrival, but it was normal for departing when I depart late night (23:00 - 24:00). This seems to be a very busy time for departing aircraft, being many people like night flights where they can sleep. I believe the aircraft being used landed about 16:00, so expecting that aircraft to remain at the gate for over 7 hours was not reasonable to expect given the lack of enough contact gates at Don Muang. I always hated to be bused at Don Muang, especially on internation flights. The bus gate was at the far end of the international terminal, and the plane was always parked way beyond the domestic terminal. If you weren't lucky enough to get a seat, it meant standing on the bus for a good 20 minutes, sometimes up to 30 minutes. Probably 80% or more of the time I departed at that time I got buses, so I'm hoping my flight next week at that time will use a contact gate.

I don't have any first hand knowledge of THAI operations, but based on my experiences I don't know that I accept your statement that THAI doesn't use contact gates in order to economize. Is this just your interpretation of events, or did you actually hear that from THAI or from someone who has first-hand knowledge of their operations?

You are conveying your experiences and I am conveying mine. I normally fly early AM and late PM TG domestic flights and at least 50% of recent flights (Don Muang) have used buses. My last international flight from Los Angeles used a bus. On one occasion the TG flight from CM departed just after an Air Asia flight - upon arrival at BKK the Air Asia plane was at a contact gate and the TG plane used a bus (while 5 contact gates were unused) . Other threads here have indicated that AOT charges an additional fee for use of a contact gate (and I assume there is a towing fee also), from which one can assume economic issues are the determing factor. Nevertheless, my argument is not how often it happens - it is that it happens at all. If the new airport is attempting to compete with Singapore and Hong Kong, customer convenience should come first.

[Soju]

You are conveying your experiences and I am conveying mine. I normally fly early AM and late PM TG domestic flights and at least 50% of recent flights (Don Muang) have used buses. My last international flight from Los Angeles used a bus. On one occasion the TG flight from CM departed just after an Air Asia flight - upon arrival at BKK the Air Asia plane was at a contact gate and the TG plane used a bus (while 5 contact gates were unused) . Other threads here have indicated that AOT charges an additional fee for use of a contact gate (and I assume there is a towing fee also), from which one can assume economic issues are the determing factor. Nevertheless, my argument is not how often it happens - it is that it happens at all. If the new airport is attempting to compete with Singapore and Hong Kong, customer convenience should come first.

I'm guessing that case of the Air Asia plane using the gate was just an exception to the rule. Maybe all the remote parking reserved for them was full at that particular time. Or maybe one or two of their flights regularly use a contact gate due to lack of enough reserved remote parking. Certainly from my experience them using contact gates would be the exception to the rule. I can understand if you were frustrated that you paid more money for your THAI flight and got stuck with remote parking while people who paid very little on Air Asia ended up getting contact gate parking. But I wouldn't automatically assume that it was due to economics.

I'm in complete agreement that customer convenience should come first and that all airlines that choose to use contact gates should be allowed to. My feeling is that it was a capacity and airline assignment problem at Don Muang that forced THAI to use remote parking and not so much an economic one. I guess we'll have to wait and see what happens at Suvarnabhumi. I for one shall be complaining very loudly to THAI if they do choose to continue to use remote parking when there is obviously no shortage of contact gates. I gladly pay extra to fly THAI for it's added convenience. If they take away that convenience, I will fly on an alternative.