DPM Pridiyathorn orders AOT to improve facilities in Suvarnabhumi

The Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister, M.R. Pridiyathorn Devakula, has assigned the Airports of Thailand Public Company Limited (AOT) to quickly mend the defects and increase the facilities inside Suvarnabhumi Airport.

Mr. Chotisak Asapaviriya (โชติศักดิ์ อาสภวิริยะ), the AOT President, said M.R. Devakula would like the passengers, both domestic and international, to be satisfied with the services inside the new airport. Some of the facilities to be improved include the insufficient number of restrooms and the maintenance of the venue.

Next week, the AOT will start to assess the passengers’ satisfaction with Suvarnabhumi Airport. The result will be used to develop and improve the airport services in accordance to the passengers’ demands.

Source: Thai National News Bureau Public Relations Department - 20 October 2006

Firstly , obvious answer to any organisation that has a problem - top politico says

'just fix it , OK" and it will get fixed ?

Secondly , I was sure I read they had a transport minister - but of course it's not

his job to deal with something like this.

Well, at least it's a start that somebody as important as the Finance Minister is aware of the chaos at Suvarnabhumi. Whether they will be able to improve it to the levels of other new airports in the region is questionable. Hong Kong's Chek Lap Kok, which will be 10 years old next year, is light years ahead of Suvarnabhumi. Changi, which is 19 years old ditto. Rather than the "pride" of Thailand, which was the advertising guff, it's more like the "disgrace" of Thailand, unless you're one of the many who have done very well by the skimming that's obviously taken place. When are they going to start usung the automated baggage system again, rather than the manual system that is currently being implemented?

ah they should have used richard rogers who won the design prize for the new Madrid Airport>>

its a stunning design

Associated Press

Originally published October 17, 2006

LONDON // Madrid's new Barajas International Airport terminal, featuring vast, light-filled halls, has been honored with the Royal Institute of British Architects Stirling Prize - Britain's most prestigious architecture award.

The building's designer, the Richard Rogers Partnership, beat five other challengers with its colorful airport terminal, three-quarters of a mile long.

Richard Rogers, chief architect behind the project, accepted the $35,400 prize for the firm, which also designed London's Millennium Dome and the Centre Pompidou in Paris.

"It's certainly the most exciting building I have been involved with for many decades," Rogers said Saturday at the London ceremony.

The airport terminal, which took six years to complete, came at a cost of $7.2 billion and doubled the size of the Spanish capital's main airport. It was officially opened Feb. 4 by Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero.

"Whatever the means of approach, by air or by land, the sheer scale and complexity of what has been tackled and achieved here cannot be overestimated," the judges said of the design.

"In response to the key challenge: that of efficiently processing constantly changing passenger flows and associated luggage handling, the resulting building presents a straightforward linear diagram in the form of a clear sequence of spectacular spaces for both departing and arriving passengers."

The Stirling Prize honors the building that has made the greatest contribution to British architecture in the past year. The winner must be a RIBA member, and the building can be anywhere in the European Union.

The other finalists were a private house in London, the glass-clad Evelina Children's Hospital in London, an east London library, the National Assembly of Wales in Cardiff, also designed by the Richard Rogers Partnership, and renowned Iraqi-born architect Zaha Hadid's Phaeno Science Center in Wolfsburg, Germany.

The award is named after architect Sir James Stirling, who died in 1992.

Previous winners of the prize, now in its 11th year, include the Scottish Parliament building and London's cigar-shaped 40-story glass skyscraper, popularly known as the "Gherkin."