Thai Prime Minister General Surayud Chulanont who is PM in Thailand since Thaksin Shinawatra has been deposed by army coup in September 2006, there is almost one year, said that operating both Suvarnabhumi and Don Muang airports will improve travel quality in Thailand and that domestic flights within Thailand won't fly to Suvarnabhumi Airport anymore soon but fly to Don Muang former Bangkok international airport instead.
At first the new governement said that the relocation of domestic commercial flights from Suvarnabhumi Airport to Don Muang Airport was due to repairs but everybody already knew that the move would be definitive as the new airport has not been built big enough to handle all Thailand international and domestic flights.
But as work to repair Suvarnabhumi airport might last for years Don Muang former airport might also handle some international flights and then both Suvarnabhumi and Don Muang airports might be turned into twin Bangkok international airports.
In the future airport rail links will connect both Suvarnabhumi and Don Muang airports in order to increase passenger convenience when they will have to catch a flight in the other airport.
Commentators said that the excuse of runway repairs is obviously just an excuse and that the move couldn't be just temporary while they repaired the runways and that building an airport rail link between both airports might take ten more years.
This move to Don Muang airport could also be a problem for some airlines for which moving their domestic operations to Don Muang would mean more difficulties in aircraft utilization as they will no longer be able to have the same planes turnaround from a domestic flight to go out on an international flight as it is the case now.
The only solution seems to be to definitively open Don Muang airport to some international flights again and have the airlines choose one airport or the other for all their flights, and not split between the two places.
Splitting the airports strictly along domestic and international lines simply can't work in Thailand, where a large percent of the traffic is tourist-based and where most of the people coming though international flights need to connect to a domestic flight, what they wouldn't like to do by having to cross the city to reach the second airport.
Let us remind you that Suvarnabhumi Airport is already running at its maximum capacity of 45 Millions a year passengers and that an extension is planed to handle 15 millions more passengers a year but it seems that the army that controls the Thai government would like to open DMK Don Muang former airport for obvious financial benefits and that AOT Airport of Thailand won't be able to finance the Suvarnabhumi Airport extension.
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