Re-opening of Don Muang

It was announced yesterday that there will be a partial reopening of Bangkok’s Don Muang Airport to offset the problems that have arisen with the opening of the new Suvarnabhumi Airport.

The Thai Government previously discussed the option of reopening the older airport for domestic usage, but now international flights operating through Don Muang as well as Suvarnabhumi is a possibility when the airport will be re-opened in the first weekend in April. The decision of the routes that will move back to Don Muang will be decided on February 21.

The Ministry of Transport was at first adamant that the rearrangement of airlines throughout the two airports will be on a purely “voluntary basis”. Later, Transport Minister Admiral Theera Haochareon stated that the movements would be decided after a study of the practicality of flight allotments before airlines would be free to make a decision.

This decision to re-open Don Muang has been a result of speculation that the ineffective use of Suvarnabhumi’s full range of facilities is creating increasing passenger traffic in the airport that is already operating at peak capacity of 45 million passengers a year.

Another reason for the move has also been blamed on the already damaged runways of the new airport. Suvuarnabhumi’s runways, taxiways and terminal buildings are under investigation with an engineering report expecting to find more than 100 cracks in the runways. The repair of the damages will reduce Suvarnabhumi to just one runway, creating an even greater backlog of passengers waiting around in the airport.

Many are already looking at this move as the latest disaster in a long run of problems that the new airport has been experiencing since its opening in September last year. This has created some image issues for the airport, but Minister Theera remains optimistic saying that “having two airports will not ruin the image; instead it will strengthen it. Instead of saying Suvarnabhumi Airport as a hub, Thailand as a whole is.”

Passengers who will be flying to Thailand in 45 days time from the first weekend of April will be able to know which airport that they will be arriving at by the airport codes. Suvarnabhumi Airport will be retaining its BKK airport code and flights to Don Muang Airport will be operating under the code DMK.