Similar to my livery of the month, I am starting a post called Airport of the Month. This month, I’m featuring Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi Airport. Suvarnabhumi Airport opened in 2006 to replace Bangkok’s old airport, Don Mueang. The airport handles close to 40 million passengers a year, and is the home base for Thai Airways International, Bangkok Airways, Orient Thai Airlines, PBair and Thai AirAsia. Bangkok is a thriving metropolis of more than 10 million people, and is a major worldwide business hub. Suvarnabhumi serves as the gateway to Thailand, in addition to being a major connecting point for Southeast Asia, and the Kangaroo route. Here’s just a few facts about the airport:
2 parallel runways (60 m. wide, 4,000 m. and 3700 m. long)
2 parallel taxiways
120 parking bays (51 contact, 69 remote)
5 A380 ready gates
130 passport control checkpoints for arrivals, 72 for departures.
26 customs control checkpoints for arrivals, 8 for departures.
22 baggage conveyor belts.
360 check-in counters. There are 100 additional counters for passengers without luggage.
107 moving walkways.
102 elevators.
83 escalators.
76 flight operations per hour
45 million passenger capacity
3 million tonnes of freight capacity
Why was BKK chosen?
Bangkok Suvarnabhumi is one of the airports I’ve been dying to visit since it opened in 2006. (Does anyone want to give me a good deal to fly through BKK?? Perhaps TH to India, hint hint…) In my opinion, it is among the world’s most beautiful airports. The luxury and vividness, I feel, is unmatched by any other world airport. Though the airport can get very crowded at times, its large airy concourse is still quite enjoyable.
What’s Going on at BKK??
The people at BKK are very smart. They recently signed an agreement with the 10 largest passenger airlines at BKK that entitles them to landing-fee rebates for carrying more international passengers. The scheme offers discounts of up to 30% to airlines that increase passenger volume through Bangkok’s gateway airport. The rebates are based on a complex formula that compares a carrier’s passenger volume this year with 2009. I think this is a brilliant plan, because by increasing passenger traffic, they should be able to gain more taxes per passenger. In addition, more passengers means that more money will be spent at airport businesses, giving the airport more ancillary revenue. The increased revenue from those streams makes the agreement a net gain for the airport and the airlines. Truly a win-win situation…
It was also recently announced, that Istanbul-based Turkish Airlines has plans to make BKK into its regional hub. Turkish, a member of the Star Alliance along with Thai Airways International, is the Middle East’s third largest airline. They already have plans to introduce flights to Ho Chi Minh City, Kuala Lampur, Manila, Sydney, and Auckland from BKK, in lieu of operating direct flights themselves. From a business point of view, this makes sense, as Turkish may not have enough O&D from Istanbul to operate the routes, but can via Bangkok, and Thai will gain added revenue, and additional feed into their network on the second daily Istanbul-Bangkok route. It also should not cause too much of a disruption, as Turkish already sends almost 50,000 passengers a week on interlines through Bangkok, with a good proportion to Australia/New Zealand. But what does it do for the consumer? In reality, not much. While passengers will now have more options when travelling to and from Istanbul, at the end of the day, those passengers can be routed on THAI flights just as easily. And because both airlines engage in the legal form of collusion known as codesharing, its not as if prices are suddenly going to magically drop. So as a whole, we the people don’t really gain much. Still, it is a cool bit of news… Enjoy some more pics of BKK!!!
