Restarting Bangkok Aiport To Take At Least A Week

Policemen officers stand guard on the main road to Bangkok`s Suvarnabhumi Airport

Author Reuters

Restarting Bangkok's Suvarnabhumi airport will take at least a week from the end of the current sit-in by protesters because of security and IT system checks, airport general manager Serirat Prasutanond said on Monday.

"Normally, checking the IT systems takes one week. We have to check, recheck, check, recheck," Serirat told Reuters, adding that the delay would be even longer if any of the airport's massive computer systems needed repair.

"I think some systems are damaged," he said, but he declined to provide further details.

Once Airports of Thailand, the site's operator, was satisfied that everything was working as it should, it would invite the Department of Civil Aviation and airline representatives to do their own checks, Serirat said.

It is not known how long those third-party checks will take.

The closure of the $4 billion, 125,000 passenger-a-day airport since Tuesday has stranded thousands of foreign tourists and is threatening the tourism- and export-driven economy with billions of dollars of damage.

The misery is being compounded by the parallel closure by protesters of Bangkok's Don Muang airport, which served as the capital's main air hub until Suvarnabhumi's opening in September 2006 and is still important as a domestic hub.

Serirat did not talk about Don Muang.

Some international flights are now departing via U-Tapao, a Vietnam War-era military airfield 150 km (90 miles) southeast of Bangkok.

The other options for travellers trying to get flights out of the country are via Chiang Mai, 700 km (435 miles) to the north, or Phuket, 900 km (560 miles) to the south.

Some are also driving overland to Cambodia to get flights out of Siem Reap or Phnom Penh.