This page describes the gateway into Bangkok. If you are preparing for a trip there, we encourage you to read the AsiaExplorers Bangkok Travel Guide as well.
Suvarnabhumi Airport is the long awaited new Bangkok International Airport. After decades of waiting and delays, the new international airport finally opened for full commercial operations on 28 September 2006, following a trial run that began on 15 September 2006.
Suvarnabhumi replaces the aged and over-congested Don Mueang International Airport (often also written Don Muang). It is located in Racha Thewa in Bang Phli district, Samut Prakan province, about 25 kilometres east of Bangkok. I had the opportunity to use Suvarnabhumi a month after it opened - I decided not to use it immediate after it opens, as the likelihood of hiccups may throw my trip into disarray. At it turns out, Suvarnabhumi Airport opened without too much trouble, unlike KLIA and Chek Lap Kok Airports. Within a span of one week, I used Suvarnabhumi three times, as I was making domestic flights within Thailand.
Traffic in motion at the departure level of Suvarnabhumi.
Suvarnabhumi Airport is owned by Airports of Thailand, AoT. It was built at a cost of 113,774,799 billion baht or approximately 3 billion dollars. It occupies a 8000-acre plot which was bought as early as 1973, but Thailand's turbulent political situation prevented the project from moving forward until 1996, when the New Bangkok International Airport (NBIA) company was formed. And then came the Asian Financial Crisis of 1997, which halted further progress for another five years, till 2002, when construction finally got started on the terminal building.
In between, the land on which Suvarnabhumi is situated had to be cleared and firmed up. It was a marshland called Nong Ngu Hao, which means Cobra Swamp - not the most welcoming of names for Thailand's foremost entry point. A new name, Suvarnabhumi, was selected by the King of Thailand, Bhumibol Adulyadej. It means golden land, and refers to an ancient kingdom (similar to Atlantis, so to speak) located somewhere on mainland Southeast Asia, and assumed to be Thailand.
Suvarnabhumi Airport Photo Gallery
To enjoy the photographs of Suvarnabhumi Airport, please click thumbnail.
Suvarnabhumi Airport was supposed to open in 2005 - as I had longed for, but it did not. That year NBIA was dissolved while its responsibilities were transferred to Airports of Thailand PLC. Posters of Suvarnabhumi Airport were plastered all over Don Mueang Airport, and an announcement made of its opening on 29 September 2005. It did not open on that date, of course, but two Thai Airways test flights did take off.
Further delays pushed the opening of Suvarnabhumi ever further until former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra gave the ultimatum for it to open in September 2006. Test flights, with seats sold to the public, only started in July. It involved six Thailand-based airlines (Thai Airways, Nok Air, Thai AirAsia, Bangkok Airways, PBAir and Orient Thai aka One-Two-GO). The first flight test to an international destination was conducted as late as 1 September 2006, when two Thai Airways aircrafts, a B747 and a A300 departed at the same time, 9:19am, bound for Singapore and Hong Kong. At 3:50pm, the two flights returned to Suvarnabhumi and touched down concurrently on runways 19L and 19R, demonstrating the airport's readiness to handle heavy traffic movement.
When Thaksin Shinawatra was disposed in a coup-d'état on 19 September, 2006, I thought the opening of Suvarnabhumi would once again be postponed. Fortunately it did not, and the airport opened to commercial operations as planned, at 3:00am on 28 September. The first flight, a Lufthansa Cargo flight from Mumbai, touched down at 3:05am.
As was to be expected, there were some hiccups on the first few days. The majority of the complaints centred on the slowness in the arrival of luggages, often an hour and some as much as four hours after the flight had arrived. Despite such reports, I did not encounter any problems in all the three times I used the airport within a month of its operation.
Suvarnabhumi Airport has two runways. Its passenger terminal building - which it claims to be biggest in the world - is actually slightly smaller than that of Hong Kong International Airport, which is 570,000 sq meter vs Suvarnabhumi's 563,000 sq meter. It does hold claim to the world's tallest control tower. At 132.2 meters, it is just 2 meters taller than that of Kuala Lumpur International Airport. As Bangkok is one of the busiest travel hubs in Asia (Don Mueang ranked fourth in volume behind Tokyo, Beijing and Hong Kong airports), the possibility for Suvarnabhumi to hold the title as the busiest airport in Southeast Asia remains strong. From my personal observation, I do wonder, though, how Suvarnabhumi is going to maintain itself, considering it already looks crowded on the first month of operation.
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