First Impressions : Suvarnabhumi Airport - arrivals

Hallo Suvarnabhumi

27 September 2006

Air Asia have had a great few days at the new airport. With no other airlines fully operational they have been ahead of schedule. There are no taxiing delays and after three days all the ground and air crew are familiar with the airport. Tomorrow will be a different story !

I flew in from Macau about 6pm tonight. The standard landing runway will be 19R. We were 25 minutes early which may be a record for AA. It was a long walk through dark concrete passages to the immigration area but once there there are plenty of counters and the baggage hall is bright and colourful. The local artwork is a nice touch and is quite striking.

The meet and greet area after customs appears to be on the small side and could get very crowded.

The big problem with a single terminal building is how do you know which part of the terminal you are supposed to wait in to meet arriving passengers.

You descend one level to catch a local meter taxi. Yes they are now allowing then up to the terminal building. The trouble is that the dispatch was terribly slow even with just a handful of passengers. When it gets busy this could be very slow and frustrating. Even with a rain storm and rush hour traffic the taxi took only 45 minutes. Not too bad.

Looking through glass dividers into the departure area it is clear that huge amounts of work have been done since Monday. The duty free shops were stocked. The magazine store was open. There were still hundreds of people working away; especially on the airline offices which appear to have been the lowest priority.

There will be teething problems. But it is a fabulous looking airport and it's opening is a great day for Bangkok, Thailand and the airline industry.

Arrivals Level; walk way to immigration. The walk gets interrupted occasionally by badly placed duty free shops.

A welcoming figure pre immigration; unpacking outside the Qatar Airways office; and the night view of the exterior if the terminal from the taxi level.

Baggage hall artwork. I think this is terrific,

First Impressions : Suvarnabhumi Airport - departures

The new Bangkok airport building site

25 September 2006

Thai Air Asia has made an early move to the New Bangkok Airport with all its flights now arriving and departing at the new airport. Most airline will make their move on Thursday 28th.

First impressions:

It was a 35minute taxi ride from Sathorn Rd. Using Bangna-Trad; the meter fare was Baht 250 plus a 40 baht toll. I left home at 7.55am but you are going out of the city against the traffic so the journey was easy. The taxi driver was sightseeing as well as this was his first trip to the airport.

The terminal is huge.

The check in area is a massive metal and concrete hangar. When it is busy, from Thursday onwards, I fear it will be noisy. Check in areas are well signposted. Inevitably with only one terminal it will be hard to keep traffic flowing outside the terminal building and congestion as passengers are dropped off will be a problem. Hong Kong solved this by having the rail connection up and running from day one.

The check in area has a high roof and lost of light. But after you clear immigration you walk into the shopping mall. Here the roof is lower; there is no natural light and it is quite claustrophobic.

None of the shops are open today. Not one. You cannot even buy a newspaper. And many of the shops look like they will struggle to be ready for Thursday. There are hundreds of people working in the terminal. It is dusty. There is not a seat to be seen until you reach the boarding gates. Even the food court apppears to have no seating area.

The biggest problem with the shopping area is that there is no a lot of space. Stores have been crammed in and there is not a lot of walking space between the stores. When the airport is busy this could be a real problem and this area could be a badly crowded bottleneck. It is not a problem with a 100 Air Asia passengers in the international terminal. But with several thousand waiting for the late evening long haul flights then there will likely be a problem.

The good news is that the runways and taxiways are well marked and fully operational. It was a short taxi to runway 19L, which will be the main take off runway. he bad news for golfers is that the take off is over Thana City. Flying East we turned before Green Valley and went straight over the top of ABAC and Subrapreuk Golf Course. The westerly departure will head out over Green Valley.

The big test will come on Thursday. Can the airport cope with 100,000 passengers a day rather than a few hundred. Where will the bottlenecks be? What will be open? 

The good news for Air Asia. They will be up and running and familiar with their new home.

Not all the security checks are ready. For Air Asia's Macau flight we had to clear security by gate D1 and walk to gat D8A. This is over a kilometer; there is no moving walkway. This is an airport for the fit and athletic.

The overwhelming impression is of an airport for the industrial age. It is all metal, concrete and marble. Even the boarding gate seats are made of metal. It is a harsh environment.