Situation improves for airport delays

The worst of the recent troubles that hit Suvarnabhumi airport seems to have passed, but fundamental problems of congestion and flight delays persist. Delays for take-offs and landings at the airport have shortened to a more acceptable range since a good part of the 4,000-metre eastern runway was reopened for service on July 18 after partial completion of an overlay. "The situation has returned almost to normal, with delays of 8-15 minutes per flight now, which is quite acceptable," said Marisa Pongpattanapun, chairwoman of the Airline Operators Committee (AOC), a grouping of global airline managers at Suvarnabhumi. Aeronautical Radio of Thailand Ltd, Airports of Thailand Plc (AoT) and cockpit crews all confirmed the improved situation,she said. Speaking separately, Narongchai Tanadchangsaeng, Suvarnabhumi's deputy general manager, agreed. He told the Bangkok Post that flight delays resulting from all causes including both runway maintenance and weather conditions now affect only 80 movements a day out of 830 flights passing through the gateway airport each day. That is much better than the 300 flights a day affected at the start of the eastern runway's shutdown on June 11. Before the eastern runway was recertified for take-offs on July 18 for all types of aircraft except the double-decker A380 superjumbo jet, average delays of 30-50 minutes were the norm at Suvarnabhumi. The effect on air traffic brought by the shutdown of the eastern runway, the first such closure since Suvarnabhumi began operation in September 2006, was aggravated by two other factors since late last month. These were the July 5 subsidence of a section of the western runway, which was promptly fixed; and the June 21 breakdown of the airport's radar system, which crippled flights and caused aircraft to be diverted to other airports. Mr Narongchai expressed confidence that delays will decrease even further once the entire overlay work on the eastern runway _ 1,620 metres of the runway's of 4,000 metres _ is completed next Tuesday. But Mr Narongchai and Ms Marisa both conceded that returning the eastern runway to full service, with both take-offs and landings, will not entirely eliminate delays amid fundamental problems with capacity. Suvarnabhumi, the busiest airport in Southeast Asia, was designed to handle 45 million passengers a year, but airport operator AOT expects a volume of 52.2 million this year. From thailandtourismupdate