Baggage hiccups mar Bangkok airport opening

BANGKOK, Sep 28 (Reuters) Thailand's new 4 billion dollar international airport won a thumbs up from most passengers on its first day of operation today, although teething problems with the baggage handling system led to some delays.

''It appears there weren't enough carts to carry the luggage from the plane,'' said Hemant Chattopadhyay, an IT professional from Bangalore in India who had to wait 2 hours before being reunited with his bags.

Others complained about a lack of signs to the baggage halls, although by-and-large the massive complex, which will be able to handle 45 million passengers a year when it hits top gear, appeared to have swung into action smoothly.

''The signs weren't very clear and so we had some problems finding the baggage hall and kept on getting lost. Eventually they had to let us through some secret door,'' said 19-year-old South African backpacker, Gerald Neves.

''Still they were all very friendly and we got an unofficial tour of the place,'' he said, with a shrug of the shoulders.

For Bernard Ashford, a British pensioner on a two-week package holiday, it was plain sailing through an airport billed as a serious rival to Hong Kong, Kuala Lumpur and Singapore.

If every phase of its planned expansion comes to fruition, it will be the largest airport in Asia.

''No problems at all,'' Ashford said. ''We've got everything we set out with.'' In the cavernous steel-and-glass departure hall of Suvarnabhumi -- ''Golden Land'' in Thai -- check-in queues moved steadily, although some passengers confessed to being overawed by the size of the world-record 563,000 sq m terminal.

''It's just such a big space it made me feel uneasy,'' said M S Mukti, returning to her native Bangladesh after a four-day conference in Bangkok.

With 12 million tourists a year visiting Thailand and aspirations to being a regional trading and meeting centre, successive governments in Bangkok have deemed a replacement for its ageing, single-runway Don Muang airport necessary.

However, it is 40 years since plans for a new airport in ''Cobra Swamp'', 25 km (15 miles) east of Bangkok, were first drawn up.

Delayed by a succession of military coups and the 1997 Asian financial crisis, it finally came into being under the administration of billionaire Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra.

Ironically, following another military coup last week, Thaksin will only be able to enjoy his pet project from his daughter's flat in London, where he is now living in virtual exile.

If and when he ever returns to Thailand, he is likely to be impressed.

''It looks really nice and checking in was very smooth,'' said Ron Kirschnick, an American businessman who will not miss the tatty arrival halls of Don Muang, mothballed after its final arrival last evening.

''Overall, I'd give it a nine or 10 out of 10,'' he said.

REUTERS SAM SSC1251