Holiday surge leads to crowded airport

AVIATION SUVARNABHUMI CAPACITY

Holiday surge leads to crowded airport

BOONSONG KOSITCHOTETHANA

The crowding at Suvarnabhumi Airport is becoming even more apparent during the holiday season as the airport's capacity is fully utilised.

Average daily passenger traffic through Bangkok's new airport between Dec 28 and Jan 3 is expected to be 121,000 passengers, exceeding the airport's designed capacity of 120,000 passengers, said Airports of Thailand Plc (AoT).

About 17,000 more passengers are expected to go through the airport each day in the period, above the daily average of 104,285 passengers on normal days.

In other words, there would be 850,000 more passengers passing through the airport in the period and most of international arrivals are Asians.

Higher passenger volumes reflect a 21% increase in international flight numbers, both scheduled and chartered, to 182 from between Dec 25 and Jan 5.

However, the domestic flight numbers through the Suvarnabhumi are falling 78% in the period to 51 from 183 a year ago as many non-connecting domestic flights were diverted to the old Don Mueang Airport that was reopened in March this year.

The busiest days at Suvarnabhumi will be on Dec 29 and Jan 2 when there would be 38 and 25 additional flights operating, respectively.

Serirat Prasutanond, the general manager of Suvarnabhumi airport, said the airport was prepared to cope with the holiday traffic surge. This meant making sure that all facilities including aprons, aerobridges and baggage systems are in good working condition. Airport staff and security have geared up to deal with strong demand. Security personnel excluding police officers, have been increased by 350 to 1,350. Eight hundred and fifty of them are from AoT and 500 are from Loxley, the licensed security firm.

An information centre to assist passengers would be set up in the passenger terminal's seventh-floor hall, which would be operating 24 hours a day (tel 0-2132-9946/7)

In its first year to Sept 30, Suvarnabhumi handled 41.93 million passengers, 267,555 take-offs and landings, and 1.18 million tonnes of cargo.

Planners at AoT, the monopoly that runs the country's six major airports, believes the volume through Suvarnabhumi would soar to 44.5 million passengers next year, before brimming over shortly after.