Air traffic puts Suvarnabhumi in bad light

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Air traffic puts Suvarnabhumi in bad light

By Coconuts Bangkok 

 

Photo: Facebook/Suvarnabhumi airport

 

BANGKOK: -- Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi airport, with its relentless waves of tourists, was called out as one of the airports most guilty of bottlenecks, or congestion points. This is especially worrisome since it is projected to serve 14 million more passengers than its handling capacity this year.

 

At the International Air Transport Association (IATA) World Summit in Cancun, Mexico, attended by over a thousand world transport officials on Monday, Suvarnabhumi was called out by Alexandre de Juniac, IATA’s director-general. He criticized Bangkok’s main airport, alongside other countries’, for the frequency in “facing bottlenecks.”

 

In spite of the facility’s annual 45 million passenger capacity, the Thai airport expects a whopping number of 59 million people in the January-to-September time span.

 

https://coconuts.co/bangkok/news/air-traffic-puts-suvarnabhumi-bad-light/

 

-- © Copyright Coconuts Bangkok 2017-06-08

[shady86]

Insufficient immigration staffs manning the counters make it worst.

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[Heng]

Reason enough to build a 3rd airport!

[11223344]

Is there actually something in Bangkok that isn't built for "yesterday" without looking what will be required "tomorrow"?

[Ace of Pop]

Whopping Numbers.?. Where.?. Don is there most cluttered up place here.

[shady86]

Allowing long term visa holders with reentry permit to use automatic gates would do wonders. And the horrible long taxonomies and queues at DMK also needs to be looked at.

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[boike]

The math doesn't add up.

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[SiamBeast]

Traffic jams, even at the airport. Amazing Thailand.

 

They should also have a better system in place for takeoffs - maybe I'm wrong, but I often waited 45 mins in the plane on the runway before they finally took off.

[Ricardo]

16 minutes ago, Heng said:

Reason enough to build a 3rd airport!

 

Or at least the long-awaited/promised on-again/off-again 3rd-runway ?

 

Construction has now started on the new overflow-terminal, but is there the spare runway-capacity to serve it, delays whenever there is normal runway-maintenance would suggest not. 

Edited June 8, 2017 by Ricardo

[oxo1947]

2 minutes ago, SiamBeast said:

Traffic jams, even at the airport. Amazing Thailand.

Gosh I am glad that never happens anywhere else in the world-------Wow 45 minute wait.

Yer your right SiamBeast...must just be a Thai thing.

 

*I agree with Shady86--Need more immigration staff

The UK's most-delayed flight's

• 56% of flights between 30 minutes and 1 hour late in March 2016

• 22% were between an hour and 3 hours late

• 22% were between 16 and 30 minutes late

[KhunBENQ]

From frequent domestic travel I didn't notice too many problems/flight delays.

But last time I was badly surprised by the queue at the domestic security check ("X-ray").

I can't remember how many machines they have(2?, 3?), but to me it looks way to few.

 

For international travel I see the ever recurring pictures of long queues at immigration.

Hard to predict how long you will have to queue.

 

We all know who the added passengers are. Mass tourists from China, India and close by.

 

Be assured that 59 vs. 45 million "congestion" is laughable compared to the Berlin disaster. An old airport originally built for 6 million now serving 21 million.

[elephant45]

Separation times between aircraft takinng off and landing needs to be reduced to what ORD, LHR NRT does or similar. But that would requiring paying a heck of lot more attention.

[SOUTHERNSTAR]

3 hours ago, 11223344 said:

Is there actually something in Bangkok that isn't built for "yesterday" without looking what will be required "tomorrow"?

Yes shopping malls and bike lanes.

[Searat7]

The airport was beyond capacity when it opened in Sept. 2006. Building a third runway right away would have been a no brainer

[yellowboat]

3 hours ago, Father Fintan Stack said:

They can't as they wouldn't be able to control it with their antiquated system. It barely handles Thais going in and out. Plus they would likely want reciprocal agreements from Western countries to do the same at airports which will never happen. 

 

Interestingly Singapore and Australia now support automatic gates for themselves and certain other nationalities - UK, US and a couple more.

Thai immigration probably does not know the Thai phrase for "reoccurring business".  There is a certain hatred of visa exempt visitors and they are overly scrutinized even if they have valid work or residency permits in neighboring countries.  Seen passports looked over for 10-15 minutes for certain people.  Thai airports deserve to be singled out as having poor service.

[Guitar God]

Not my experience at all. I fly in and out of there all the time and I've never missed a flight, never had any delays. Most of that is domestic or ASEAN travel. When I fly business class internationally I spend no more than 15 minutes with customs, immigration and checking bags. 

 

There's a lot worse places, I spent 90 minutes getting out of Auckland airport. Even Vancouver, SeaTac, LAX and Amsterdam take more time than BKK. 

[Moti24]

4 hours ago, Ricardo said:

 

Or at least the long-awaited/promised on-again/off-again 3rd-runway ?

 

Construction has now started on the new overflow-terminal, but is there the spare runway-capacity to serve it, delays whenever there is normal runway-maintenance would suggest not. 

No point in building a 3rd runway if they can't process the current amount of passengers through passport control in a reasonable time.  If they think that a 3rd runway will bring-in more tourists, they need to upgrade the present system first.

[bbi1]

I know the problem, too many quality Chinese tourists flying in on their group packaged tours....the TAT did too good of a job getting those tourists. Stop them and the amount of tourists into that airport will half lol

[IMA_FARANG]

The biggest problem in  that airport is the ridiculous emphasis on the shops and the distance one has to walk through them to get to the departure area gates.

It was deliberately designed when built  so that tourists would  have to enter the country through the shopping arcades first on entry and then again on exit from Thailand.

I make it a priority NOT to buy anything from the shops there, especially as I am over 70 and always book a wheelchair when I travel.

I will stop at the immigration, the baggage areas, and the money exchange banks if I need to, but I deliberately avoid the shopping arcade.

Just my little rant about Suvarnabhumi .

 

[richard_smith237]

3 minutes ago, IMA_FARANG said:

The biggest problem in  that airport is the ridiculous emphasis on the shops and the distance one has to walk through them to get to the departure area gates.

It was deliberately designed when built  so that tourists would  have to enter the country through the shopping arcades first on entry and then again on exit from Thailand.

I make it a priority NOT to buy anything from the shops there, especially as I am over 70 and always book a wheelchair when I travel.

I will stop at the immigration, the baggage areas, and the money exchange banks if I need to, but I deliberately avoid the shopping arcade.

Just my little rant about Suvarnabhumi .

 

 

In all fairness, which Airport isn't designed to route passengers through the Duty Free areas ?

 

The Airports in the UK take this to a new level. In Singapore and Hong Kong you have to pass through (past) plenty of Shops to get to your gate. Suvarnabumi is no worse. 

 

I find Suvarnabumi airport quite reasonable on all levels, its a big airport so there is a lot of walking as with any other big airport. 

Flight departures are usually on time, certainly no more or less issues than with other airports I frequent. 

 

Perhaps the only outstanding issue is the time it takes for passengers to transit Immigration - I commonly see a huge queue of passengers both departing and arriving. 

[Guest Jerry787]

2 long waiting issues at BKK airports, both of them

1- DMK old airport - immigration counter even worst of the BKK airport
2- Taxi as usual the same tragic long queues and bad attitude.

 before create a new airport lets  enlarge at least twice or more the immigration points and add crab a car and uber as waiting for a taxi at the airport queue

 

this proves that architect who planned both airport didnt consider the taxi and immigration queue

 

[shady86]

2 long waiting issues at BKK airports, both of them

1- DMK old airport - immigration counter even worst of the BKK airport
2- Taxi as usual the same tragic long queues and bad attitude.

 before create a new airport lets  enlarge at least twice or more the immigration points and add crab a car and uber as waiting for a taxi at the airport queue
 
this proves that architect who planned both airport didnt consider the taxi and immigration queue
 

There is enough counters and DMK, just that more than half of them are unmanned most of the time.
I also noticed some counters only serve visa on arrival which are empty most of the time despite long queues on other counters. The officer will only do what the counter is designated for.

[sanukjim]

6 hours ago, boike said:

The math doesn't add up.

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Business Insider says that Suvarnabhumi is the 20th business airport in the world in 2016 with 55,892,428 passengers.

[djayz]

7 hours ago, Heng said:

Reason enough to build a 3rd airport!

Heaven's forbid! 

[just.a.thought]

It would be great if more international flights were to use Utapao.....

[just.a.thought]

1 hour ago, IMA_FARANG said:

The biggest problem in  that airport is the ridiculous emphasis on the shops and the distance one has to walk through them to get to the departure area gates.

It was deliberately designed when built  so that tourists would  have to enter the country through the shopping arcades first on entry and then again on exit from Thailand.

I make it a priority NOT to buy anything from the shops there, especially as I am over 70 and always book a wheelchair when I travel.

I will stop at the immigration, the baggage areas, and the money exchange banks if I need to, but I deliberately avoid the shopping arcade.

Just my little rant about Suvarnabhumi .

 

You should try Madrid airport, there you actually have to walk through the shop, not just past it...

[djayz]

Overall I find Swampy to be ok, but as has already been pointed out, the bottle neck seems to be immigration - both on arrival and departure. There are enough counters but only a few are ever occupied by imm. officials. 

It's possible to calculate a few days in advance how many passangers are arriving/departing and at what time of the day (morning, afternoon, etc.). How difficult can it be to add a few more IOs to the schedule for peak times? 

[shady86]

Overall I find Swampy to be ok, but as has already been pointed out, the bottle neck seems to be immigration - both on arrival and departure. There are enough counters but only a few are ever occupied by imm. officials. 
It's possible to calculate a few days in advance how many passangers are arriving/departing and at what time of the day (morning, afternoon, etc.). How difficult can it be to add a few more IOs to the schedule for peak times? 

Most of them wouldnt want to work in that miserable condition. It's much easier to work at office playing their phones and taking their own sweet time checking documents :)

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[djayz]

4 minutes ago, shady86 said:

 

Most of them wouldnt want to work in that miserable condition. It's much easier to work at office playing their phones and taking their own sweet time checking documents :)

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Then they need a superior who kicks arse. He/she just needs to kick one arse/cause one person to lose face, and everybody else'll fall into place ? Guaranteed! 

[jacko45k]

18 hours ago, oxo1947 said:

Gosh I am glad that never happens anywhere else in the world-------Wow 45 minute wait.

Yer your right SiamBeast...must just be a Thai thing.

 

*I agree with Shady86--Need more immigration staff

The UK's most-delayed flight's

• 56% of flights between 30 minutes and 1 hour late in March 2016

• 22% were between an hour and 3 hours late

• 22% were between 16 and 30 minutes late

Isn't that data purely from one specific flight and carrier.....namely PIA onward from Manchester to New York? A flight I personally would not get on and likely arrives late from Pakistan nearly every time and hence no fault of the UK airport. Talk about misusing data to falsely make a point!

 

My flights from Manchester seem to get off close to scheduled....

Edited June 8, 2017 by jacko45k