[Fair Use: For Education and Research Purpose Only]

LINK

Two airports won't fly

Imtiaz Muqbil

Even as a senior team of the International Air Transport Association (IATA) was making the rounds of Bangkok last week, explaining the complications of setting up a dual-airport system, the Transport and Communications Ministry was telling the public that that is exactly what is going to happen anyway.

After years of delays and horrendous cost over-runs-the reasons are too elaborate to outline here-the ministry has no choice but to split flight operations between Nong Ngu Hao and Don Muang if and when Nong Ngu Hao opens, though it has often appeared that "if" would be a better word.

According to the ministry's formula, Don Muang will serve half of the domestic flights on the four main routes: Phuket, Chiang Mai, Hat Yai and Chiang Rai, and flights on other domestic routes where passengers do not need to make an immediate connection. It will also handle charter flights, technical landings, general aviation and all freight flights. That will take up about 7.4 million passengers.

Nong Ngu Hao will serve all international passenger flights and the other half of the main-route domestic flights on which passengers may need to transit on to international flights. Total passenger throughput is expected to be around 28.8 million.

The ministry knows that operating two airports will be costly and complicated. The original design of Nong Ngu Hao allowed for a total annual throughput of 30 million passengers, including all domestic, international and charters, plus cargo and technical landings. That was assuming an opening sometime in the late 1990s.

But as every year has come and gone, governments have changed and the various cobra-pit of vested interests manoeuvred to tinker around with the vast sums of money involved in the new airport, the 30-million capacity has become outdated and is no longer viable for an opening in 2004.

In 1999, Don Muang handled 20.45 million embarking, disembarking and transit international passengers, up by 9% over 1998. It also handled 6.83 million domestic passengers, down 0.03%.

IATA stresses that given current growth rates in economies, tourism and regional passenger traffic, Nong Ngu Hao will be just about saturated the day it opens "with severe consequences for businesses and tourism".

It has criticised the untested, egotistical design of the passenger terminal-which is not unlike many of the trophy hotel properties erected in the days when money flowed like water-but noted that with some design fine-tuning, the capacity can be considerably expanded at fairly low cost.

It has also stressed that it is imperative for Nong Ngu Hao to open with two runways to prevent a total shutdown of tourism traffic in the event of an accident. However, a recent aerial photograph of Nong Ngu Hao shows that only one runway is taking shape.

IATA and the Thai Board of Airline Representatives have sounded some very ominous and significant warnings about this looming botch-up. Thai Airways International faces the likelihood of some very significant cost over-runs, and its competitive edge in the "seamless" Star Alliance could be at stake.

Tour operators will need to keep staff and vehicles at two airports. Cargo exporters may be hit by further cost hikes, eroding their edge in a competitive regional economy. IATA is forecasting, conservatively, revenue losses of 805 million baht and tourism losses of 10.7 billion baht for just two years of delays.

One question the IATA people were repeatedly asked at various briefings was why they hadn't sounded the alarm much earlier? They countered that they had been trying for three years to convince the authorities to alter the terminal design and ensure that the airport is built with adequate capacity and on time.

They tried doing it the "Thai way", quietly and without making anyone lose face. It didn't work. Now, with so much at stake, they've responded to the appeals of their airline members and decided to go public, though they came just short of acknowledging that no matter what is done, it might be too little too late.

IATA has also raised serious questions about accountability in Thai aviation. A check through the news clippings about Nong Ngu Hao shows the sorry record of decisions that have been made and then chopped and changed virtually at will, with little effort to publicly explain the reasons for those changes.

Now, the very detailed and pointed IATA briefings have made the situation very clear to the people who stand to be most affected: The members of Thailand's business community and the travel and tourism industry. Will the Transport Ministry now go before the same audiences and explain how it plans to make a two-airport system operate?

While history suggests that it will not, it now faces the likely prospect of being asked the same very difficult questions by a much more aware public. If nothing else, that shift to greater public accountability alone could be the greatest benefit of the IATA briefings. Democrats call it "empowerment".

Indeed, the decisions still to be made regarding the future of the entire Thai aviation industry are so complex and intertwined that the chances of Nong Ngu Hao opening in 2004 are very dim indeed. These include, among others, the future funding of Nong Ngu Hao, the selection of a contractor for the 45-billion-baht passenger terminal, the privatisation of domestic airports and THAI, and the restructuring of the Aviation Department.

Add to that the strong possibility of a general election this year and it becomes obvious that only a feat similar to the 18-month construction of the Queen Sirikit National Convention Centre for the 1991 IMF/World Bank convention, or the sports facilities for the 1998 Asian Games, will result in Nong Ngu Hao being completed on time.

As no major "prestige" event is likely to take place at Nong Ngu Hao, and in the absence of any clear-cut public accountability by public servants who know they will not be in their jobs if and when Nong Ngu Hao does open, there is little sense of urgency. Future generations can take care of the problem however they see fit at the time, leaving it to historians to figure out why a project that started at the time of Field Marshal Sarit Thanarat is still bogged down in the mud of the Cobra Swamp.

============================

-- Dee (t1colt556@aol.com), February 07, 2000