Bangkok's New Airport---A Debacle

What's Wrong With Suvarnabhumi?

During the past month or so, the big news in Bangkok has been what the press describes as the Suvarnabhumi airport debacle or fiasco. These adjectives are deserved. Bangkok's new international airport, named Suvarnabhumi, some 40 years in its planning and construction, prematurely opened this past September 28, at a cost of $3.9 billion dollars. Inasmuch as the airport wasn't ready for commercial operation, why then rush to opening day? The answer is political.

The airport was the showpiece of former Prime Minister Thaksin. It boasts the world’s largest passenger terminal building, the world’s tallest control tower, and a stunning architectural design viewed from afar. After many delays, Mr. I Know Everything decreed that it had to open on September 28, a national priority, he said, a date which was a few weeks in advance of his re-election campaign, that is, before he was thrown out by the military on September 19. In spite of warnings from the airlines, the IATA, Airports of Thailand, the agency which operates Thai airports, and others, the old airport was closed and the airlines were forced to move to Suvarnabhumi, ready or not.

From it’s opening, Suvarnabhumi got bad reviews from travelers and tourist-related businesses, but these complaints were of a nature that appeared to be capable of remediation, and were within the category of understandable growing pains. They are too numerous to mention, but here are a few, all of which I’ve personally experienced:

Lack of Sufficient Toilets. This was the largest single complaint, especially from arriving passengers, who were advised to relieve themselves on the plane before or right after landing, because they would not have the opportunity to do so in the airport.

Inadequate Signage. I found that it was impossible to locate the public taxi stand after exiting customs. My first arrival at Suvarnabhumi took place only four days after it opened, and thankfully, a small cardboard handwritten sign pointed the way, a sign I wouldn’t have found except for the fact that I had read directions to the taxis, which were posted on an Internet message board. The usually helpful Thais were not in evidence because the entry hall was crowded with limo touts who refused to tell me where the taxis were located, no doubt because the limos charge about four times the taxi rate.

Duty Free Shopping Areas. This is an amazing story. Duty-free shopping at Suvarnabhumi is in then hands of a company called King Power, which obtained an the exclusive contract for all duty-free shopping and commercial space at the airport, and, it is assumed, bribed heavily for its sole license. The location of King Power’s selling areas are such that passengers must pass through its stores to get to the planes. (Picture left. The world's tallest control tower.) This gives the airport the appearance and feel of a shopping mall (some wag has labeled Suvarnabhumi as Thailand’s largest shopping mall), but it also impedes traffic flow and, it is reported, blocks fire exits. No one understands how this could have been permitted. It has now been uncovered that King Power is occupying almost 50% more space than its contract allows. Recently, King Power acknowledged that it had taken over more of the airport than permitted, but said that it was willing to pay for the additional space, but no one seems to be suggesting that it retrench back to its allowed space.

While I was writing this post, the Council of State determined that King Power's contract was illegal, and Airport Authority of Thailand terminated the contract, but said that King Power could continue operating as before, until AOT figured out what to do, a period estimated at about a year. Furthermore, King Power will be permitted to bid on the new contract. My guess is that some face-saving contract modifications will be made, some more money paid to "dark forces," and that King Power will again emerge as the sole lessee of all commercial space at Suvarnabhumi.

Parking. The parking garages are defective, difficult to get to, and slow to exit. Thai’s are endlessly inventive, and the police often cooperative, and here’s what’s happened in this regard. There is a controlled-access road leading from the freeway to the airport. Now, illegally parked on the shoulder of the road, are lines of autos. Everyone in Thailand has a mobile phone, and when an arriving passenger exits the terminal, he calls the car which is waiting to meet him, which then proceeds to pick him up in front of the terminal. Parking problem solved! The police seem unconcerned with the safety hazard caused by the long line of cars parked on the access road.

Dirty Windows, Faulty Air Conditioning and Cracked Floor Tiles. Emblematic of substandard design and construction, the air conditioning doesn’t work well, the floor tiles are already cracking after only five months of use, and the large expanses of windows are filthy, with no plans of how to either clean them, or to maintain their cleanliness in Bangkok’s fetid climate and very dirty air. The new Airbus A380, the much delayed two-floor flying behemoth, paid a publicity visit to Thailand in December, and I arrived early for a planned departure to LAX so that I could view it from the departure terminal. I found the plane parked well within viewing range for the public to see, but I never got a clear view of the plane because of the dirty windows.

The Real Issue: Cracked Runways, Taxiways & Terminal Building.

IS SUVARNABHUMI SAFE?

Let’s start with the basics and eliminate one potential concern, that is that the airport is built on formerly agricultural land, fish farms, swamps and waterways. On January 31, I attended a forum at The Foreign Correspondent’s Club of Thailand, where Tortrakul Yomnark, a respected engineer who heads the Airport of Thailand’s blue-ribbon engineering panel, which is charged with assessing the damage at Suvarnabhumi and recommending what should be done to correct it, spoke. Khun Tortrakul, who struck me as knowledgeable, professional, and fearless, stated that the airport was not sinking and that modern engineering techniques were capable of building a large and complex airport on former swampland, but whether proper design and execution were used at Suvarnabhumi, were issues that his committee was examining. It provides some insight into Thai society, to learn that the committee, in spite of frequent requests, has been refused access to the airport’s blueprints and plans, from the government agency that supervised its construction. But, test drillings on the runways and taxiways are proceeding.

Another concern, but apparently not a serious safety issue, are the cracks that have appeared in the terminal building itself. (Picture left: The world's largest terminal building). According to Tortrakul, such cracks are normal for a new building, and do not signal any structural failures, and can be repaired without too much trouble. What remains, then, are the cracked and rutted taxiways and runways.

In August, 2005, in a front-page story about a year before the airport opened, The Bangkok Post reported that the runways, although never used, were already cracking. The story irritated former Prime Minister Thaksin, who labeled it a fabrication and threatened the paper with a billion-baht lawsuit.
The paper caved in, retracted the story, and fired the two reporters, Chadin Tephaval and Sermsuk Kasitipradit. By the way, a frequently used Thaksin government tactic to control and intimidate the press, was to sue the media offender for billions, when a story appeared that went contrary to the government’s line. This tactic, and others like withdrawing government media contracts, proved imminently successful during the Thaksin regime, and international ratings by press watchdogs saw Thailand’s plummet, whereas before, Thailand enjoyed a quite free and lively press. Courage among Thai publishers, media owners, and reporters, was mostly lacking. Even though the story about the runway cracks has now proved to be accurate, the paper won’t rehire the two reporters, who on March 5, 2007, were given an award for investigative reporting and courage, from the Thai Journalist Association.

Today, the new government admits that the runways and taxiways are cracked and, under the new prime minister appointed by the military, the cover-up has ended. Everyone agrees that the cracks are serious and should not have occurred so soon after the airport opened to full commercial aviation. But, there’s disagreement as to the cause of the cracks and what should be done about them. Khun Tortrakul, prior to his committee’s investigation being completed, thought that the runways were structurally defective and might have to be totally replaced, but his final report indicated that the cracks could be fixed. More than a month has elapsed since his report was issued, but repairs have yet to begin. The situation will only worsen and is in no way stabilized; the upcoming rainy season will aggravate the hazard.

The major danger to planes is that the cracks have appeared where the planes take off, which is the area that bears the greatest weight, not the landing areas as one might assume. (Picture right. Test borings on the runway.) Debris thrown off from the cracks and ruts, can get into jet engines, causing the plane to crash on takeoff, as happened to the Concorde in Paris, which was downed by debris from the plane taking off immediately in front of it. Still, no repairs are underway at Suvarnabhumi.

Runway cracks at Suvarnabhumi airport were raised in Britain's parliament due to safety concerns for UK citizens visiting Thailand. Conservative MP Greg Hands, in the House of Commons on Feb 22, pressed Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett and Transport Secretary Douglas Alexander for answers about whether flaws at the new airport would pose a danger to airlines and passengers. The questions were an indication of the rising international concern since the airport opened on Sept 28. Apart from runway cracks, Suvarnabhumi also has structural problems inside the terminal and elsewhere. The MP didn’t receive any answer from the British ministers involved.

We do know, however, that the airport has not received international nor Thai government certifications and is operating with any licenses. Although most airports have been certified or audited by the International Civil Aviation Organization, the audit is not required unless local law makes it mandatory, which most countries do, either by law or voluntarily. Thailand has never applied to the ICAO because it knows that Suvarnabhumi would fail. The airport did receive a temporary permit to operate from Thailand's Department of Civil Aviation, but when the permit to operate expired in December, the government refused to renew it. No matter, Suvarnabhumi just keeps on operating at whatever level of safety may or may not exist.

A consultant admitted last week that the Suvarnabhumi airport terminal violated the Building Control Act of 1979. He said that there is no way that the terminal could ever be brought into compliance. His solution: amend the building code to dumb it down to Suvarnabhumi’s level. Earlier this week (March 16, 2007), Transport Minister Theera Haocharoen inspected the airport and said about the terminal building: "It is not safe." He specifically noted that more than 20 fire exit routes were located inside King Power duty-free outlets, and would be blocked and chaotic in the event of an emergency.

For several weeks during February, headlines and front-page stories predicted that the new airport would be closed for repairs and the old airport, Don Muaeng, reopened until Suvarnabhumi was safe and operational (more than one letter writer suggested that the whole thing be torn down; another letter writer was horrified that Thailand was considering building a nuclear power plant).

And so the airport debacle continues. To relieve the pressure on ailing Suvarnabhumi, the old airport will be reopened on March 25 for domestic flights. The ride between the two airports in Bangkok’s notorious traffic, could be about three hours. Presumably, at some time, repairs to the new airport will begin. Everyone is hoping and praying that a crash does not occur while the authorities dither. It is widely assumed that, once Don Muaeng is reopened, Bangkok will permanently have two airports.

What caused this fiasco? The most popular explanation, and the one that might be correct, is that it is due to corruption. One professional group of Thai architects determined a while back, that 20% of the cost of any building project in Thailand was spent on bribes. Khun Tortrakul stated at the FCCT forum I attended, that the corruption level had increased to 30% during the last few years of Suvarnabhumi’s construction while the Thaksin regime was in power, which would mean that almost a billion dollars, which was supposed to buy Thailand a world-class airport, went instead, to corruption. No wonder the airport is, truly, a fiasco.

Suvarnabhumi has left the front pages and little news appears. Still, it is easily predictable that it will resurface as a major source of embarassment to Thailand. My only hope is that some dreadful accident will not be the cause again propelling Suvarnabhumi to front page status.