Few airports can have been unveiled in the wake of more chaos and confusion than Thailand’s Suvarnabhumi. After a muddied history of repeated delays, political meddling, corruption allegations and budget overruns – not to mention a military coup that ejected the prime minister from power – the US$4 billion complex finally opened its sparkling glass-and-chrome doors at the end of September, four decades after conception. Following his election, ex-prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra made it a personal priority to get the airport built. And, leaving aside its inauspicious start, there's little doubt that the 563,000m2 terminal building is a highly impressive structure and a welcome relief from the aged and overcrowded Don Muang airport. But its tricky name is likely to add to the chaos. Chosen by the revered King Bhumibol, Suvarnabhumi, pronounced “su-wanna-poom”, means the Golden Land. Unlike Don Muang, Suvarnahbhumi features just one enormous terminal (the world’s second largest), which handles all international and domestic flights. Spanning seven storeys and decked out with huge steel-and-glass hoops, it is open-plan and has the largest roof trellis on earth, excellent shopping, eating and business facilities. In design, it’s not dissimilar to Amsterdam Schiphol or Hong Kong's Chek Lap Kok. Suvarnahbhumi's vital statistics are impressive. There are two parallel runways to cope with simultaneous departures and arrivals. Of its 120 parking bays, five are capable of handling the Airbus A380 super jumbo, and the airport has the capacity to accommodate 76 aircraft movements an hour and up to 45 million passengers annually. The Thai government is banking on making Suvarnabhumbi the aviation hub of Asia, and yet within weeks of opening, taxiways and parking bays were cracked. In a cruel twist of irony, far from being sited on “Golden Land”, the airport is situated at Nong Ngu Hao, meaning Cobra Swamp, a location that caused controversy from the outset. An initial investigation in October by the Engineering Institute of Thailand has found excessive underground water, both inside and outside the airport. The report concluded that the airport’s asphaltic concrete pavement was soaked for too long and was so soft it could not bear aircraft weight; the airport authorities were blamed for failure to minimise the amount of water in surrounding ditches. As a result, the level underground surged and eventually seeped to the surface.
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