Getting Here

By Air

Bangkok's new $3 billion Suvarnabhumi Airport, 40 years in the planning, covers an area of 7,900 acres and was designed to challenge Singapore's Changi Airport and Malaysia's Kuala Lumpur International Airport as the major air-travel hub in Southeast Asia. It replaces the Don Muang Airport, which is overcrowded and outdated.


The main seven-story terminal building, a mammoth structure of glass and steel, will initially be able to process 45 million passengers a year but it has the capability of handling 100 million, more than 10 times the population of Bangkok. Initial aircraft movements are set at 76 per hour with the potential of 112. In its infancy the airport is expected to handle three million tons of cargo annually but is equipped to handle twice that amount. When the airport opened, access to the facility was only by road. Multi-lane elevated highways were constructed from five directions, north, northwest, west, south and northeast. An electric rail-link is under construction and should be completed by 2008. It will be an express line from Bangkok's Makkasan Station.


The airport has 15,000 parking spaces; its kitchens can produce 65,000 airline meals a day and the government claims it to be the most eco-friendly commercial airport in the world. "We have our own water-treatment and catering-waste-treatment facilities and the buildings have been designed to reflect heat outward to conserve energy," a spokesman explained. Thai Airways budgeted $15 million for setting up its operations here. Its 10,000-square-meter check-in facility includes a spa and a unique premium area, where passengers can relax on sofas while staff check them in via portable wireless terminals.


Opening of the 600-room Novotel Suvarnabhumi Airport Hotel, shown below, coincided with the start of the airport operations. The $70 million hotel was created through the partnership of Airports of Thailand, Thai Airways International and Krung Thai Bank. The hotel is connected by a walkway to the airport's terminals and will also have access to the city rail-link when that is completed. Accor, the company that owns Novotel, won the contract to operate the hotel, beating competing companies including Marriott, Carlson and Amari.