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Thailand to reopen old Don Muang airport

Thailand decided Tuesday to reopen Don Muang airport as another international airport because the new Suvarnabhumi airport has been hit by trouble and airport passengers are expected to increase in the future.

“We have to reopen Don Muang after considering the problems of Suvarnabhumi airport and also the number of passengers, which is expected to increase rapidly in the near future,” Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont said at a press conference. Don Muang Airport was the only airport in Bangkok until 28 September 2006 when they closed it and opened the new one: Suvarnabhumi. When I was in Thailand, there were concerns about the new airport due to the lousy air conditioning (which I totally agree with), baggage system, long walks to gates, cracking of taxiways and possible cracking of runways. The powers that be were considering reopening the old airport to non-connecting domestic flights and Thai even threw in their vote for that, something that proponents of the reopening needed.

However, the linked to article says it has now been decided that the old airport is to be reopened as another international airport. So, if one has to switch airports for a flight, one will need to allow a lot of time for the transfer due to the fact that the two airports are nowhere near each other.