SBIA Reviews

[jerryfin]

I noticed that they have now demolished the rent-a-car and AoT limo and info booths that were blocking part of Gate B exit. They have also cut back several meters of the frosted glass walls at the exit from customs. This makes a much larger area for greeters and allows passengers to be spotted more easily. They have have also stopped people walking past Gate B...you must stay on one side or the other. If you want to pass from side to side (ie from Gate A to Gate C), you have to pass outside. Also the entire airport seems cleaner. They have now started to charge parking fees in the multi-story car park, but baggage trolley brakes still are sometimes applied when the wheel disks fall into the walkway grooves. Taxis are now parked in a bit of a herring bone..vaguely resembling Changi. There are more obvious signs now telling passengers that public taxis are downstairs.

[jpatokal]

"A ranking of Asia’s five most spectacularly strange buildings, from the quirky to the downright ugly to the utterly forsaken."

http://www.tripmastermonkey.com/arch..._buildings.php

And guess who gets the top prize?

[jpatokal]

So after a shamefully long absence, I just had (or, to be precise, am having, as I'm typing this at the TG lounge in BKK) the chance to pop into Thailand for all of eight hours today and pop my Suvarnabhumi cherry in the process.

First impression: Wow. It's big, it's thoroughly modern, it's funky (well, at least if, like me, you like steel, glass and raw concrete) and it's just on a whole different level from Don Muang, where the only funk is the strange smell. Parts remind me of Incheon (the neverending travelators), parts remind me of Kansai (the two-layer arrangement of arriving and departing pax, separated by a glass wall), parts remind me of KLIA, only larger (the humongous departure hall). And there are Thai touches here and there, although it certainly doesn't whack you over the head with them, and that too appeals to my Nordic-Zen sense of minimalism.

Unaccountably, Immigration was using the stupid "one queue per desk" model, and I was stuck in line for a while as the loud guy in front of me, in an equally loud Hawaiian shirt and too many Thai stamps in his passport, was raked over the coals. I didn't find the infamous post-Customs arrivals crush too bad, although signage was pretty lacking -- it took a bit of wandering around until I found my way to Departures (to check in for my connection), and a lot of wandering around until I finally found the shuttle bus stand (is it just me, or is there no signage at all for this?). Signage for the train in the basement was there though in the lifts and all around, just covered up in tape waiting for opening day...

Once I did find the bus stand, the spiffy new "express" shuttle showed up almost immediately and ferried me to the bus terminal, which was surprisingly nice. No sign of bus schedules though, and English signage there was a bit spotty, but asking around a bit confirmed that bus 552 was indeed going to On Nuch, and soon enough I was on my way. (Great to see construction on the Skytrain extension on Sukhumvit taking shape, by the way!)

On the way back I took a taxi, which also provided a good chance to check out the progress of the airport link -- long stretches already have the viaduct up and they seem to be moving at a good clip on the missing bits too, although there's apparently still a gap at RCA where the Nasa Superdome was? Once we got on the highway, signage for Suvarnabhumi was comically plentiful, my favorite being back-to-back signs announcing "Suvarnabhumi 14 km" and "Welcome to Suvarnabhumi Airport". The final approach by night, though, is seriously awe-inspiring -- the vast airport spreads out on all three sides, bathed in a sea of light, with the blue-lit hulk of the main terminal building looming ahead.

One thing that struck me, though, is how packed with people the airport appeared on this perfectly ordinary Saturday evening -- did they really have this many pax in Don Muang too in its hayday, and can the check-in facilities cope with any more expansion, or are they going to build an entirely separate terminal? It's not uncomfortably crowded, yet, but it quite doesn't have the same feeling of vast space as KUL, ICN and KIX do.

Exit immigration was painless and I finally realized why everybody compares the terminal to a shopping mall -- the airside area looks just like Paragon, with blinding white walls, designer lighting and fancy boutiques, and I overheard a middle-aged couple whisper, in genuine awe, "this airport is beautiful". I'm tempted to agree. But having already done my fill of that in the city, I made a beeline for the TG lounge, which also has vast depth and slightly too many people for comfort. Fortunately the PCs are misconfigured so that the network keeps flaking out randomly, so people leave in disgust after a while -- a bit of poking around revealed that they're set to connect to the nearest network, so whenever somebody brings in a laptop with peer-to-peer wifi enabled, bam. I set "aotwifi" as the automatic default and p2p into manual, and now at least two of them work OK.

All in all, for me Suvarnabhumi is looking pretty good, and once the airport link is up and running I'll be as happy as a clam. Fixing up those cracked runways and such might be nice though...

[jpatokal]

BTW..... now what we are still waiting for is of course jpatokal's Suvarnabhumi trip report on Flyer Talk. Don't know when his next visit to the LOS is scheduled?

Ask and ye shall receive! I'll also be stopping over for a few days in May, so I may still update that later...

[ncr]

...and pop my Suvarnabhumi cherry in the process.

Ts, ts, ts.

I didn't find the infamous post-Customs arrivals crush too bad

It has gotten better. The greeters (and touts) used to flood the area immediately behind the customs exit, and you virtually had to fight your way through - but now they have pushed them back behind barriers in the exit passages to give the arriving passengers some breathing space. Still, the arrival area is incredibly tiny for an airport of such dimensions.

until I finally found the shuttle bus stand (is it just me, or is there no signage at all for this?).

No, I think they just have signs for the Airport Express, not the shuttle bus.

Signage for the train in the basement was there though in the lifts and all around, just covered up in tape waiting for opening day...

Really? Never noticed that.

Once we got on the highway, signage for Suvarnabhumi was comically plentiful

Actually it's also plentiful in the city...

my favorite being back-to-back signs announcing "Suvarnabhumi 14 km" and "Welcome to Suvarnabhumi Airport".

Yeah, seems they only have signs with the number 14.

One thing that struck me, though, is how packed with people the airport appeared on this perfectly ordinary Saturday evening -- did they really have this many pax in Don Muang too in its hayday?

Yes, how did they manage to fit these crowds into good old DM???

[GWR]

Unaccountably, Immigration was using the stupid "one queue per desk" model, and I was stuck in line for a while as the loud guy in front of me, in an equally loud Hawaiian shirt and too many Thai stamps in his passport, was raked over the coals.

Sounds like it might have been one of the posters in this very thread, who also has another login with a 'Hawaiian' reference. I sort of picture him as the 'Moondog' character in the 'Robotman/Monty' cartoon series.

[Pas]

IMO the new Beijing Olympic stadium looks pretty insane.
The whole stadium is wrapped in metal skeleton. I wonder if it's structurally sound. However I like its design originality..

http://www.inhabitat.com/2007/03/07/...-and-demeuron/

[mdechgan]

It a shame that our new airport makes it into the top 5 of Asia's worst blunders.

I knew it was a bad idea to build an airport on swamp land unless proper bore piles were used along with proper irrigation. Engineers knew this all along. You just don't dump sand on swamp land and not expect it to sink with repeated 800 ton planes land every 5 minutes.

At first I thought the design was just overlooked, but how the hell can bathrooms be forgotten. The designers should have known from the start that there weren't enough bathrooms. It was ridiculous, something like 1 sink and 1 toilet per concourse/terminal. The arrival area was also a joke. Something like 2 meters on depth for the people waiting. Just bad design.

I think it might have been more cost effective if they just closed the new airport for a year or two to demolish and rebuild the terminal properly.

The design is so flawed that a quick fix just isn't going to work.

Redesign the the arrival area, add more bathrooms and new piles for the runways and taxiways.

[jpatokal]

At first I thought the design was just overlooked, but how the hell can bathrooms be forgotten. The designers should have known from the start that there weren't enough bathrooms. It was ridiculous, something like 1 sink and 1 toilet per concourse/terminal. The arrival area was also a joke. Something like 2 meters on depth for the people waiting. Just bad design.

I think these have been pretty much fixed? The last time I was there I remembered being surprised at how many bathrooms there were on the arrivals side, every 50m or so...

[GWR]

Rather a confusing report. (That confusion is not helped by the fact that there is a repeat in the article which has not been editted out. I've removed it below.) What beats me is that the report gives no idea of SBIA's actual rating, in spite of giving the ratings of other airports outside the Top Ten:

Suvarnabhumi not among the world’s best

BOONSONG KOSITCHOTETHANA

Despite its advantage as the world’s newest airport, the gleaming Suvarnabhumi Airport was not counted among the best in the latest major global passenger poll.

However, rival regional airports including Singapore Changi and Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) continue to remain high on the list of top 10 Airports of the Year for 2007.

The survey conducted by the UK-based aviation research organisation Skytrax placed Hong Kong International Airport (HKIA) first, followed by Seoul Incheon Airport and Changi tied for second place (see table).

KLIA rose to fifth place from sixth last year, according to 7.8 million detailed passenger surveys covering 170 airports conducted over an 11-month period.

The absence of Suvarnabhumi in the Skytrax list did not surprise the aviation industry in light of service-quality complaints that have plagued the 155-billion baht airport since it opened in September last year.

‘‘Suvarnabhumi Airport itself is not too bad to get it into the top-ten list, but the problem that is holding it back is the poor airport management that hassles passengers,’’ said one 30-year veteran of Thailand’s airline business.

Long immigration lines, poor signage and a shortage of toilets are among some the critical problems that have not been effectively dealt with and continue to prevent the airport management from meeting a goal to create high quality passenger service standards.

‘‘Fixing problems at Suvarnabhumi are painfully slow as senior AoT (Airports of Thailand Plc) officials are too occupied protecting themselves from scandals involving irregularities and alleged corruption cases rather than being able to devote themselves to solve day-to-day works like fixing problems at the airport,’’ he noted.

Meanwhile, the airport’s rivals are constantly challenging themselves to provide better services. Suvarnabhumi ‘‘needs a lot of catching up’’, he added.

Passengers participating in the Skytrax survey said they wanted easy use and short waiting times.

‘‘Travellers expect security processing to incur some delays,’’ said Skytrax chief executive Edward Plaisted. ‘‘But they are disappointed — and often annoyed — if the security facilities are inadequate.

‘‘Waiting in line for 30 minutes to find that only half of the available security scanners were open was a frequently stated complaint.’’

Poor services caused London Heathrow Airport to fall from 45th to 103rd in the rankings, while Frankfurt dropped to 94th from 48th.

The survey covers more than 40 categories of product and service quality, including terminal cleanliness, staff efficiency and courtesy, terminal signage and walking distances. Shopping, dining options and internet services are also taken into account. Security processing and immigration waiting times also featured prominently in the survey.

Hong Kong has taken the Best Airport title many times in the past. Its return to the top this year is a testimony to its quality services, efficient delivery and consistency, said Mr Plaisted.

http://www.bangkokpost.com/topstorie....php?id=120769

[The Enforcer!]

Hey guys,

For 61 years we have had the choice ... accurate news or the Bangkok Post.

The Enforcer!

[mdechgan]

Oh the tough choices we have to make everyday living in Bangkok.


Choice 1:
A farang, expatriate oriented newspaper owned by the Chirathivat family (owners of Central Group), and GMM Grammy whose main goals are to advertise and promote their respective industries mainly Thai past-times like entertainment and shopping.

or

Choice 2:
An newspaper that is highly critical of the Thaksin regime and clearly royalist but mainly Thai owned and written by Thai journalists whose views are slightly more nationalistic. So basically a Thai newspaper written in English.

or

Choice 3:
Search the internet for all news that I can about events in Thailand written from people outside of Thailand which are not blocked by some damn green screen of death sponsered by mict.

or

Choice 4:
2bangkok.com is my only hope

[jpatokal]

Only the Top 10 are published. Here's the official listing:

http://www.worldairportawards.com/Aw...irport2007.htm

[The Enforcer!]

Choice 4:
2bangkok.com is my only hope

Live long and Prosper!

The Enforcer!