Budget Airlines to Move to Don Mueang Airport

23rd Apr 2012

In an attempt to ease traffic and delays of the millions of Thailand's passengers, Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra planned to move all budget airlines Don Mueang Airport.

Thailand's Suvarnabhumi airport is flooded with millions of passengers flying in and out of Thailand that many of its departing passengers have suffered as they missed flights, and some others, closed calls. Chumpol Silapa-archa, the Deputy Prime Minister and Tourism and Sports Minister announced Shinawatra's plan to transfer of low-cost airlines to Don Mueang so as to improve the current air and runway traffic at Suvarnabhumi.

People who are familiar with the problem happening at Suvarnabhumi however doubted if the long-planned move will help solve the problem as current renovations affected the number of operating immigration checkpoints as only one out of the three immigration gates was working.

To help avoid problems, international passengers using Suvarnabhumi Airport were told to be at the airport as early as three hours before their flight. Chumpol, who received new about suffering passengers quite late, assured that one of their solutions, the moving of budget airlines to Don Mueang, would help ease congestion.

Chumpol is working with other agencies like the Tourism Authority of Thailand, the Ministry of Tourism and Sports, Airports of Thailand (AOT) and the Tourist Police so that personnel would increase by 30 to 40.

Deputy Transport Minister Chatchart Sithipan is supporting Chumpol by increasing the number of officers assigned at the immigration areas of Suvarnabhumi, at least for a short term.

Suvarnabhumi's airport operator, AOT was in charge of the task. The police have also been asked to help out. AOT is also looking into using technology to help make thing faster, like the use of an e-passport system for Thai passengers. The electronic system could help solve the problem especially during rush hours when airports get congested. Suvarnabhumi airport is said to cater to 48 million passengers, way above its 45 million capacity.

Meanwhile someone from the Immigration Police believes that increasing immigration checkpoint staff is not the solution, 'All checkpoints are being manned to full capacity. The problem is not shortage of personnel," says the source.

Another source from the Transport Ministry revealed that the government intended to move all of the budget airlines' domestic and international flights to Don Mueang Airport saying, "It's believed that the government must encourage low-cost airlines with incentives to move their services to Don Mueang Airport."

The source shared that AirAsia is the low-cost airline with the most flights having about 82-90 a day. Other major low-cost airlines include Orient Thai and Bangkok Airways.

The acting director of Suvarnabhumi Airport, Somchai Sawasdipol is said to be coordinating with immigration officials in order to avoid long queues and would be paying officials an overtime incentive of Bt100,000 (S$4,110) each day. At present the total number of immigration counters for inbound and outbound passengers are 124 and 80, respectively.

The president of the Association of Domestic Travel, Maiyarat Pheerayakoses, shared having no problems with plan of moving all low-cost flights to Don Mueang and doesn't mind having two Bangkok airports as long as it is convenient for passengers.

Maiyarat believes that present congestion problems were because of the Immigration Bureau's mismanagement at the airport.

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