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Suvarnabhumi Archive for September, 2006


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Minor problem on first day at Suvarnabhumi Airport

Thursday, September 28th, 2006

The first full day of operations of Bangkok’s new Suvarnabhumi Airport kicked off Thursday morning with little fanfare, but the first passengers experienced a minor glitch caused by delays in collecting passenger baggage.

The futuristic US$4 billion airport which boasts the world’s largest passenger terminal, the world’s largest hangar, and world’s tallest control tower–at 132.2 metres higher than Kuala Lumpur International Airport’s tower by 10 metres–officially opened on schedule.

However, passengers on the first commercial flight landing at Suvarnabhumi — Aeroswit flight VV 171 from Ukrain’s Kiev with 206 passengers– had to wait more than one hour to collect their baggage from the new automated baggage handling machines.

Chotisak Asapaviriya, president of Airports of Thailand (AoT) explained that the delay had nothing to do with the airport’s baggage handling machines.

“It’s only a minor glitch,” he said, “the delay was  caused by ground equipment transportation of Thai Airways International (THAI) from Bangkok International Airport (Don Muang) to Suvarnabhumi.”

The full transfer of passenger flights and other commercial aviation responsibilities from Don Muang, which has served travellers for nine decades,  to the new airport was completed at 3am Thursday (2000 GMT Wednesday).

Suvarnabumi, about 25 kilometres east of Bangkok, is capable of handling 76 flights per hour and services 90 airlines.

The airport will initially serve 45 million passengers annually, with capacity expected to more than double once it becomes fully operational.

Thailand’s military assigned 800 troops to the airport to ensure safety. Several army canine units have been deployed at the single passenger terminal to inspect suspicious packages. (TNA)



Fingerprint identification equipment to be installed at Suvarnabhumi Airport

Thursday, September 28th, 2006

The Immigration Bureau plans to install fingerprint identification equipment at Suvarnabhumi Airport within the next two months.

“Immigration procedures at Suvarnabhumi are very fast. It takes only 20 seconds for the average passenger. It will be even faster when we finish installing the fingerprint identification units,” said Police Lieutenant General Suwat Tumrongsriskul, Immigration Bureau Commissioner, who inspected the new airport Friday during its first day of full commercial service.

In addition to fingerprint scanning equipment, immigration police plan to install additional electronic passport control technology, which they hope will also be in place before the end of November.

During the inspection, Suwat dismissed concerns over criminals possibly taking advantage of the transition period between Bangkok International Airport (Don Muang) and Suvarnabhumi to sneak in or out of the country.

“We have installed passport reading machines at the gate. The passengers need to present their passport a second time before boarding an aircraft. This is to prevent the usage of bogus passports. The machines are also connected to a database of wanted persons,” said Suwat.

For arriving flights, the Immigration Bureau has requested that airlines submit a passenger manifest before a plane arrives, again for security and efficiency purposes. Police can scrutinise the data and, therefore, accelerate procedures before passengers even reach immigration booths.

The new equipment is part of a global trend among international airports to utilise biometric scanning technology for security and efficiency purposes.



Suvarnabhumi Airport welcomes massive number of passengers

Thursday, September 28th, 2006

Thai and foreign passengers are continually arriving in Suvarnabhumi Airport as it has officially opened for commercial services today.

The atmosphere in the new airport is dynamic, and domestic and international flights are arriving and departing on its runways on a continuous basis.

The new airport however is facing minor problems on its first day of commercial services, and one of them is the check-in system due to electrical hitches. Nevertheless, relevant officials have prepared plans to deal with such problems prior to the airport’s opening date.

The airport has welcomed a large number of passengers today, and some of them have come two hours before the actual flight schedules as they are not familiarized with the new venue.



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