DON MUANG BANGKOK FORMER AIRPORT OPENED TO DOMESTIC AND INTERNATIONAL FLIGHTS

Don Muang Bangkok former airport is now opened again to public and around 140 domestic flights a day, operated by three airlines (One-Two-Go, Nok Air and Thai Airways International), will take of and land there instead of Suvarnabhumi airport.

So it's about 20000 passengers a day for Thailand former main airport that everybody was thinking was too old to be used by commercial airlines.

And even when the President of the Airport of Thailand AOT affirms that relocation of domestic aircraft operations back to Don Muang Airport was not due to Suvarnabhumi Airport repairs, everybody knows the truth and some experts even said that in the future the new Suvarnabhumi airport might completely close for one year at least because of a disaster that will happen or might happen.
AOT president said that the main reason is that the number of people using Suvarnabhumi Airport increase so fast and that it is advantageous to relocate domestic low cost flights back to Don Muang Airport for less cost to operate than at Suvarnabhumi Airport.
The Airport of Thailand president also said that other issues at Suvarnabhumi such as runways and taxi ways cracks did not signify the unreadiness of Suvarnabhumi airport, and were not the reasons for the move back to Don Muang.
The AOT President added that in the future some international flights might also fly back to Don Muang as some international airlines already requested (maybe for security concerns) and not to use the reopened under its capacity of 11 million passengers a year.

As always in Thailand officials said that everything has been tested at Don Muang airport, including the terminal, airline offices, parking space, security and other facilities, but we will really know if everything is ready only if after a few days of operation no accident occurs.

Facilities at Don Muang airport include restaurants, snack bars, souvenir shops and taxi services (with fifty baht airport tax), cars being under the supervision of the Land Transport Department and subject to random checks for vehicle and passenger safety.
Thai Airways also tested its check-in and ticketing systems at Don Muang airport to be sure that the change of the airport's code and the use of four digits on flight numbers in and out of Don Muang won't make problems.
Security will also be tight at Don Muang with bomb experts from the air force and police sniffer dogs on duty plus hundreds of security cameras that have been installed.

All THAI airways flights moving to Don Muang will do so on Sunday 25th but One-Two-Go and Nok Air will divert some of their evening inbound flights from Suvarnabhumi to Don Muang on Saturday 24th to test the services at the old airport but all flights will go to Don Muang on Sunday.

Don Muang which official name was Bangkok airport changed to Don Muang airport and its airport code is now DMK, while Suvarnabhumi airport still uses BKK as a code.

Airport of Thailand organisation will evaluate the use of Don Muang after six months if no major accident occurs at Suvarnabhumi airport before that time and the evaluation report will help to decide whether the international flights will operate from Don Muang in the future or not, Thailand having the choice until Suvarnabhumi airport won't be completely closed.

Since all regular flights were moved to Suvarnabhumi in 2006 Don Muang bangkok former airport has been operating in the red, with monthly expenses 88 million baht above income for just few flights a day (VIP and officials).

The first four commercial flights to operate at Don Muang Airport on sunday 25th will leave at 6am and are Thai flight TG 1020 from Bangkok to Ubon Ratchathani, Nok Air flights DD 9200 from Bangkok to Udon Thani, DD7804 from Bangkok to Nakhon Si Thammarat and DD 7102 from Bangkok to Hat Yai.