For most people, the opening of a major green-field airport in their city -- not just a brand-new terminal building at the existing airfield -- is a once-in-a-lifetime experience. It's happened only 5 times in the USA in the past half-century (Chicago O'Hare, Washington Dulles, Houston George Bush Intercontinental, Dallas-Fort Worth and Denver). Today is such a day here in Bangkok, where I live. The new Suvarnabhumi Airport was officially commissioned at 3:00AM local time today (September 28th, 2006) and the first flight touched down just two minutes later. The old airport, Don Muang, is no longer open to commercial traffic and all flights to and from Bangkok are now using Suvarnabhumi.
The first thing I noticed is that there are no more big fat jumbos roaring over my house in the middle of the night (in fact, I haven't seen or heard a single airplane all day).
Actually this is the third such experience of my lifetime. I was living in Chicago when O'Hare took over from Midway as Chicago's premier airport, and was also living in Kuala Lumpur when the new KLIA, at Sepang, opened for business in 1998. Maybe I'm just weird (do I see heads nodding in violent agreement?) but for me it's kind of exciting.
I've driven out to Suvarnabhumi just once but couldn't get anywhere near the terminal, so I can't compare the experience of using it yet to that of other big new airports in Asia (Hong Kong, KLIA, Shanghai Pudong or Guangzhou). More on that in a future post, as I will be using the new facility in about a week or so.
However as a frequent traveler into and out of Thailand over the past decade, I'd like to dwell a moment on the things I'll miss about Don Muang as it passes into history.
- Damn! I never got the chance to play golf at that funny little course between the two runways at Don Muang, right smack in the middle of 33 commercial flights per hour (most of them jumbos) in the process of taking off or landing. Golfers are so close to the aircraft that a bad slice could easily strike a moving airplane.
- Even though the roads to and from Don Muang were always choked with traffic, it is much closer to my home and office than Suvarnabhumi, and I expect that getting to the new airport will be a real headache, at least until they finish the new subway line near my house in about 4 years or so.
- If it's anything like the other new Asian airports, I'll bet Suvarnabhumi is a lot less smoker-friendly than Don Muang. Incidentally, although Beijing airport remains as smoker-friendly as ever, I recently noticed that they replaced all the "smorking room" signs, presumably to get ready for the 2008 Olympics.
- Let's face it. New airports are sleek and beautiful, but they just don't have any character. For all its hassles, for instance, flying into and out of the old Hong Kong airport (especially the landings, as your jumbo flew a couple of hundred feet above the high-rises, with people's TV screens in clear view, to avoid crashing into a mountain) was always a memorable experience that I've missed ever since.
Besides the airplane racket overhead, there is one thing I won't miss about Don Muang, but I'll have to wait for it. Departing passengers won't have to pay 500 Baht (about USD 13) in cash at Suvarnabhumi for the passenger service fee (PSF) -- after February 2007 this will be included in the ticket cost. The bad news is that the PSF will increase to 700 Baht at that time. Frankly I don't understand the logic behind the timing. I can understand why they'd want to increase fees, but why is Airports of Thailand (AOT) waiting until February 2007?
Note: Suvarnabhumi inherited Don Muang's IATA airport code, BKK, at 3AM this morning. So when the check-in agent slaps a BKK tag on your checked luggage, don't worry, you're not going to Don Muang. Its new code is DBK.
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