Some Observations.

[Crossy]

OK, so I had the joy of going out through Suvarnabhumi last night.

Flight was at 2.30AM so we're not at peak time

Check-in was s-l-o-w mainly 'coz they were collecting excess baggage charges at the desk (I'll blame China Airlines for that)

Immigration was fast and efficient, excellent.

Once inside it is patently obvious that the concept of 'retail space' was an afterthought, my reasoning - Signs for toilets, and emergency exits (more on this in a minute) are BEHIND the shops. To get to the loos you have to walk down the (unlit) area at the back of the retail units.

Many of the emergency exit signs are NOT the international green and white standard, they are actually regular black on white signs that blend nicely with the (hidden) toilet signs. Additional illuminated signs have been added to the front of the shop units, unfortunately the power wiring for these is neatly coiled on top of the sign. The egress routes pointed to by the signs are unlit and cluttered. If there is a fire here, people will die.

There are 'proper' emergency exit signs on the steps down to arrivals level just before the xray machines.

To get the shops in they have cut down on seating, I had to hunt for somewhere to sit, god knows what it's like during the day.

The overall impression is of a cramped retail area, seems smaller than don Muang was.

[boppia]

Thanks for the info.

[Soju]

To get the shops in they have cut down on seating, I had to hunt for somewhere to sit, god knows what it's like during the day.

Crossy, this post isn't directed specifically at you, but to people in general that comment about a seating problem.

I've seen lots of complaints about lack of seating, but really don't see what people are complaining about, so can someone please tell me what I'm missing. At Don Muang, there was effectively no seating in the duty free area that I saw. I only recall seeing a couple sets of seats...maybe 20 seats total. All other seating was at the gates, or in the transit lounge. Maybe I just missed it, but I was there regularly and never once saw any quantity of seating to speak of. The same at Suvarnabhumi. Inside the duty free, there is almost no seating, the same as at Don Muang, and the same as at most other airports I've been to. The duty free area is for shopping, not for sitting. If you want to sit visit a place to sit.

There is a Thai Airways economy transit lounge which seems to have considerably more seats than the old transit lounge at Don Muang. Anyone, regardless of your airline, can go there. Beyond that, there was plenty of seating at every gate that I've been to. A few people said there was a lack of seating at their particular gate, but on the flights I took, there was at least double to triple the number of seats as their were passengers in the gate area.

In the departure hall, I've also seen reports of inadequate seating, but even going during peak times I always saw at least some seats available, and lots available if you took the time to go down to the next level. Again, I don't see this as any worse than Don Muang. The departure hall seating at Don Muang was very minimal and often full. And I've never seen extensive seating available at any airport departure hall.

The only seating problem I encountered at Suvarnabhumi was in the Thai Royal Silk Lounge, due to there only being one lounge open currently and many airlines sharing the single lounge.

Granted if you feel like sitting, you can't just turn around and expect an empty seat just anywhere, but as long as you take a bit to look, I don't see that there's any real seating problem at the airport. If someone has a different opinion, please elaborate and explain where the problem is and how much you looked for alternate seating, and how that differs from any other major airport.

[Crossy]

Crossy, this post isn't directed specifically at you, but to people in general that comment about a seating problem.

No problem soju

I'm comparing with places like Heathrow, Schipol even the world's worst airport Charles de Gaule (sp). All these airports have LOTS of seating readily VISIBLE for use by departing passengers, not necessarily in the duty free area but near and with lots of departures screens. No airport I know has any seating significant near the gates, so if you arrive before the gate opens, tough.

There do not appear to be any indications as to WHERE seating is available at BKK.

[Soju]

Crossy, this post isn't directed specifically at you, but to people in general that comment about a seating problem.

No problem soju

I'm comparing with places like Heathrow, Schipol even the world's worst airport Charles de Gaule (sp). All these airports have LOTS of seating readily VISIBLE for use by departing passengers, not necessarily in the duty free area but near and with lots of departures screens. No airport I know has any seating significant near the gates, so if you arrive before the gate opens, tough.

There do not appear to be any indications as to WHERE seating is available at BKK.

Well, it's been a while since I went through Heathrow, so don't recall the exact setup there, but all major airports I can recall have the most seating at the gates. But it's common for airports to have centralized x-ray/screening, so the gate areas are open and so you end up with very large seating areas sprawled across an area with many gates. Suvarnabhumi is designed with decentralized x-ray/screening and each gate has it's own area and seating. Don Muang was sort of a hybrid between these two designs, where there was decentralized screening per area/concourse, but within those areas you had common seating and maybe some small shops/duty free. I was referring to the main duty free area at Don Muang, where you first go through immigration, and there is effectively no seating there. To get to any real seating area, you have to go through the x-ray machine to the gate area. So in effect all the seating at Don Muang was gate seating as far as I saw and remember.

As you say, there really isn't effective signage telling you where to go for seating (ie. the transit lounge) and for a first-time passenger it might seem like the seating is inadequate being they don't know where to go. I personally would probably go to a restaurant and sit and take my time getting something to eat/drink and wait for as long as possible there before going to my gate. Or visit the Thai Airways transit lounge and sit there for a while. With doing either of those, you can freely move about, looking more at the duty free shops or whatever you want. Once you go to your gate, I'm not sure what the procedure would be if you wanted to go back out to the duty free area, or if you found that the seating at the gate area was inadequate and wanted to return to the transit lounge.

Edited October 17, 2006 by Soju

[plachon]

As Crossy mentioned the toilets in passing, I thought I'd follow up with a few observations of my own, having just come through the new airport the other day.

I found the bathrooms to be a step back from good ol' Don Muang, in that the basins are all stainless steel affairs with automatic movement sensors instead of taps. The result is a constant jet of water spurting out, which no doubt saves a bit on the water bill, but most of the water ends up on the floor instead of down the sink where it belongs. Badly designed, the sinks cause a lot of splash back and if like me, you like to brush your teeth when passing through arrivals after a long flight, there's no where to place your wash bag or other bags for that matter, apart from on a wet floor. No sign of cleaners, apart from a pair of half-wits who looked like they had never seen a farang in their life, much less one having a pee. They certainly weren't doing what they'd been paid to do and it was obvious that there was insufficient attention to hygiene in the new airport vis a vis other modern airports in the region. Some areas around the loos were not yet finished, construction-wise and it was obvious that the Sept 28th opening day was too ambitious.

One other observation was the lack of anywhere decent to sit and eat/have a drink on Level 3 between arrivals and departures, with space at a premium and choice much worse than at DM airport. All in all, I wasn't that impressed by the facilities available.