After being lumped into the list of ‘worst’ airports around Asia last week, the Thai government is keen to promote a latest list from Travel and Leisure Magazine which votes Suvarnabhumi International Airport as the seventh most luxurious airport in the world.
The Bangkok airport, aka. BKK, was also voted the second most luxurious in ASEAN.
Taking top spot in the awards is Dubai International Airport, followed by London Heathrow, Qatar Hamad International Airport, Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris, Sydney International Airport, Singapore’s Changi Airport, Suvarnabhumi International Airport, Hong Kong International Airport, Frankfurt Airport and Japan’s Narita International Airport.
Suvarnabhumi, at least in this survey, is in good company (although we wonder how Heathrow made its way into the list!)
The airports were judged on lounge facilities, the designer stores on offer, and their proximity to luxury hotels.
Airport bosses at Suvarnabhumi have big plans for the country’s largest airport, with capacity expected to increase to 150 million passengers by 2030. SAT-1, the airport’s second passenger terminal, has already opened and can handle up to 60 million passengers a year (except when the automatic train has issues, as happened at the end of February when passengers were stranded for many hours, waiting for transport to the main terminal to go through immigration and collect their bags).
A third runway is expected to open this year at BKK, increasing capacity to 90 flights an hour. A fourth runway is in the planning stages, which would boost capacity to around 120 flights an hour.
Earlier this week, a government spokesman hit back at a British travel and tourism website that included Suvarnabhumi and Don Mueang airports in a list of the worst airports in Asia.
SOURCE: Thai PBS World
