Thai airport to reopen after de-commission on Mar 25

Bangkok, Mar 24: Bangkok's Don Muang airport will reopen for domestic flights tomorrow to ease congestion at the new 4 billion dollar Suvarnabhumi airport, six months after it was decommissioned.

Only three airlines, led by national carrier Thai Airways, will fly from Don Muang, which at its peak saw 80 airlines operating 160,000 flights and handling over 38 million passengers in 2005.

Other Thai airlines said they would continue to operate from the new airport because it handled both international and domestic flights.

Workers were putting the final touches on the 93-year-old airport as cleaners mopped the floor of the domestic terminal and air force soldiers walked sniffer dogs.

''We are more than ready,'' Don Muang Airport director Pinit Saraithong told Reuters.

''We used to handle almost 40 million passengers comfortably, so five million a year this time is a piece of cake,'' he said.

The military-appointed government decided in February to re-use Don Muang after repair works at Suvarnabhumi's runways and taxi-way caused congestion and disrupted flights.

''The decision to move back to Don Muang was based on a series of problems that have plagued Suvarnabhumi, from cracks on the taxiways to out-of-order aerobridges,'' Transport Minister Theera Haocharoen said then.

But the International Air Transport Association (IATA), which represents the global airline industry, said Bangkok would be better off with one airport.

''The long-term vision should still be to have all commercial flights operating out of one airport in order to build a strong hub,'' IATA spokesman Albert Tjoeng wrote in an e-mail to Reuters.

He said the Airports of Thailand (AOT), the state-run firm which operates both airports, should ''quickly repair the deficiencies it has identified, and start work to as soon as possible to inject the much needed additional capacity.'' Suvarnabhumi, which means ''Golden Land'' in Thai, is the largest airport in Southeast Asia, with an annual capacity of 45 million passengers, which Thailand had hoped it would quickly emerge as a serious regional rival to Hong Kong and Singapore.

From Sunday 6 a m (0430 hrs IST today), Don Muang's domestic terminal would handle 140 flights with estimated 18,000 passengers a day, AOT said in a statement.

Reuters