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[IsaanUSA]

RubbaJohnny, on 2012-02-09 14:16:10, said:

Despite overcrowding prices ,access and travel times were and are better at Don Muang
I live in the North and choose C(hiang) Mai via KL and Changi both well managed.

I've also done this route.  Very easy and convenient.

[Baerboxer]

laurentbkk, on 2012-02-09 10:50:20, said:

why such need in recognition ? Bangkok airport is a mess .... arrival from Europe last week: 600M walk to the immigration , one hour queue , 45mn for my luggage to arrive. plane arrive at 7am , I left airport nearly 9am Well done for a regonial HUB.
Bangkok will never be Seoul or Singapore or even hong kong ..so stop to dream and act , this BKK airport is a big joke

Deja Vu

[hellodolly]

notime, on 2012-02-09 12:14:34, said:

Do they talk about "baggage transfer time" to other flights or passenger waiting time for the arriving baggage? I never remember waiting 90 min for baggage at any airport. After an hour I would consider the baggage lost. Does the author of this article know what he/she is writing about and ever traveled by air? I guess not.

They cannot "make" Swampy into the regional hub without taking out the other "regional hubs" first. So, what is Thai Ministry going to do about that? Nuke them or send them poisoned som tam? But of course every airport can see itself as regional hub. Why only "regional"? .. Hub of the Planet .. talk is cheap.

I agree with you about the baggage wait time.
As for the immigration.
I have a question.
Here in Chiang Mai when people go report in for their ninety day retirement visa apparently they are starting to attach a bar code to the passport. Could this be the beginning of a attempt to speed up immigration.
Funny thing about immigration the last time I went through it in Swampy I was through faster than my Thai wife. we were returning from Siem Reap

[NanLaew]

I bill my clients for travel, prorated on hours so the one-hour domestic flight is in reality a half-day affair.

Don't even think about messing with the current efficiency of Suvarnabhumi!

[SantiSuk]

Surely it's already a hub. Try flying to most cities in the immediate region of Thailand from Europe (Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Myanmar). Chances are you will end up changing in Swampy.

If they want to increase traffic as a hub they should focus on getting more routes out of Swampy and into regional cities (not just the capitals) in those countries and they should start putting some pressure on the routes where monopoly predatory pricing is applied - eg Bangkok Airways to Siem Reap.

I have used Swampy extensively since it opened. The immigration queues were quite ok by international standards 5 years ago - I travelled on biusiness a lot back then. Now they are a joke (my last arrival I finally made it into the plus 1 hour category) and becoming a serious deterrent to business and holiday travel into the country, although normal holidaymakers are less sensitive to this than the lucrative business conference/exhibition trade.

So easy to fix the simple things. Yes Changi is world class and will be difficult to beat. I don't see it as impossible for Thailand to get somewhere up there though if those in charge are prepared to take the cultural blinkers off.

[airconsult]

SantiSuk, on 2012-02-10 04:58:25, said:

Surely it's already a hub. Try flying to most cities in the immediate region of Thailand from Europe (Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Myanmar). Chances are you will end up changing in Swampy.

If they want to increase traffic as a hub they should focus on getting more routes out of Swampy and into regional cities (not just the capitals) in those countries and they should start putting some pressure on the routes where monopoly predatory pricing is applied - eg Bangkok Airways to Siem Reap.

I have used Swampy extensively since it opened. The immigration queues were quite ok by international standards 5 years ago - I travelled on biusiness a lot back then. Now they are a joke (my last arrival I finally made it into the plus 1 hour category) and becoming a serious deterrent to business and holiday travel into the country, although normal holidaymakers are less sensitive to this than the lucrative business conference/exhibition trade.

So easy to fix the simple things. Yes Changi is world class and will be difficult to beat. I don't see it as impossible for Thailand to get somewhere up there though if those in charge are prepared to take the cultural blinkers off.

I agree, what many people forget when they complain about long wait times is that the traffic growth was as expected, but airport expansion was continually delayed by (polite term here) civil unrest since 2006. The fact is that the initial phase was meant to cater to 45 million passengers annually - and it is just above that now.

As far as the excessive baggage wait times...... this should have been fixed a long time ago, there are identified problems with the system, however a planned set of improvements are proceeding slowly along - it does not affect all flights, mostly in peak periods when the system is at max capacity and then breakdowns occur.

In an ideal world the original timeline would have been followed, and the second terminal would have been completed this year, along with the 3rd runway - unfortunately that's just starting now.... so perhaps another 6 years of overcrowding to go.

Cheers

[airconsult]

mickmac, on 2012-02-09 13:23:07, said:

I feel that they also have to address the monorail link to/from the airport. Looks to be a great mode of transport for people going to/from work or people living on the outskirts heading into BKK. If you have a lot of baggage/cases etc. then it gets really painful when having to change over at Makkassan. One has to get out of the station and walk to the main road, cross the rail lines then another 100 yds on to the underground. I did this journey last Friday morning, time wise it did beat coming in from the airport in the traffic, but I found it a real pain and that was without any baggage. Why didn't they build a footbridge from the alight platform direct to the subway station, then an escalator down?
I arrived in BKK on the Saturday morning a week or so ago, and the queue at the immigration areas was the worst I have ever seen since the airport had been opened, one of them had people backing out down the slope onto the main concourse, absolutely horrendous.

Regional Hub............I'm afraid not.

(wince) My sympathies...... I'm afraid that after 6 years of contract disagreements between the Transport Ministry and the major operators of mass transit in BKK (BTS, MRT, SRT) - The ministry handled the construction and purchasing itself, and along the way, the operators were "less than enthusiastic" in cooperating - right down to blocking the original connecting tunnel to MRT at Makkasan, and delaying the connecting bridge at Phaya Thai.

Now that an operator has been selected (SRT-ET), they are gradually drawing up plans and budget to fix the makkasan problems, and improve the taxi/bus connections. This is Thailand, so it's proceeding slowly, with 60 meetings just to determine the tile colour to use on the footbridge, but it will happen eventually.....