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PussyLover 69
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Quote: from DaffyDuck on 6:08 am on Jan. 31, 2007
...and I bet no one will be blamed, and no one's at fault.
Blame it on the bloody foreigners who are out to sabotage the Thai economy hoping to dethrone Thailand as the World's No. 1 tourist country
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Thai Girls : Meet Sexy Thai Girls
Posted on: 6:48 pm on Jan. 30, 2007
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PussyLover 69
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Report from Bangkok Post dated Wednesday 31 January 2007 :-
THAI ready to move flights to Don Muang
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Thai Airways International (THAI) is prepared to transfer some flights from Suvarnabhumi Airport back to the old Bangkok international airport at Don Muang as soon as one month from now, according to THAI President Apinan Sumanaseni, but the national carrier would find it more suitable period to move in late March.
Thailand's Ministry of Transport and other agencies concerned --including the Civil Aviation Department and the Airports of Thailand (AOT) agreed Monday to transfer domestic flights without ongoing connections to Bangkok's former international airport at Don Muang.
The service transfer, on a voluntary basis, is due both to congestion and problems with taxiways and runways at the four-month old Suvarnabhumi Airport which resulted in the closing of some areas for heavy repair work.
The ministry will submit the proposal for Cabinet approval next week.
Mr. Apinan said that THAI is ready to comply with the government's policy as some flights would be able to shift services. However, some flights, including Chiang Mai-Bangkok, Krabi-Bangkok and Phuket-Bangkok, will continue to serve passengers at Suvarnabhumi as there would be some foreign passengers who may need to connect to international flights, he said.
The national carrier chief added that the company has started to plan the relocation of some equipment to Don Muang. However, he said the cost will not be high as some divisions are still at Don Muang such as Technical Division and some office appliances had not been moved to Suvarnabhumi.
"High on the moving list are ground service transport and Information Technology equipment for passenger check-in," Mr. Apinan said.
The THAI President said that while the national flag carrier may need one month to prepare the move, the most suitable timetable would be late March as the airline change its flight schedule to its summer schedule at the same time.
If the flight shifts are implemented after late March, THAI may have to adjust schedules again, which would cause inconvenience, he said.
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Bangkok Women : Meet Sensual Bangkok Women
Posted on: 6:51 pm on Jan. 30, 2007
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Yurune
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atl
With an international team of designers and project managers etc....you honestly don't believe such investigation wasn't done, that they just went ahead and built on the swamp?
Of course it was done.
They didn't just pull Somchai off the street and say "Build an airport"
Of course whether the findings were listened to in the desire to get Asia's Hub off the ground could be another completely different story.
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Thai Girls : Meet Sexy Thai Girls
Posted on: 7:02 pm on Jan. 30, 2007
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JackTheStripper
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I hear Somchai was responsible for blowing up all the balloons that were placed under the airport to stop it from sinking.
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Bangkok Girls : Meet Sexy Bangkok Girls
Posted on: 7:43 pm on Jan. 30, 2007
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PussyLover 69
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Report from Bangkok Post dated Wednesday 31 January 2007 :-
Don Muang Airport 'must be ready by Songkran' [ 13 April 2007 ]
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Renovation of the 90-year-old Bangkok Airport at Don Muang to ready it for its re-launch is proceeding at full speed and airport officials are confident the facility would be re-opened in 45 days for non-connecting domestic flights.
Transport Minister Thira Haocharoen on Tuesday expressed hope to see the recently-decommissioned international airport at Don Muang reopen for domestic flights prior to the Songkran (Thai New Year) festival so that it could serve a large number of inbound and outbound passengers.
Airport manager Flight Lieutenant Pinit Saraithong affirmed that Don Muang can be ready in time for the Songkran (Thai New Year) rush, but the plan needs to be approved first by the cabinet, which may consider the plan on February 6.
Lieutenant Pinit said the repair work would concentrate on the west runway where sections are being resurfaced, which will take some 45 days. This year, Songkran begins on Friday, April 13 and extends through Monday. There will be makeup holidays on Tuesday and, for many, on Wednesday, April 18.
But Admiral Thira said that as the plan is not yet finalised, it is not certain how long renovations will require and whether the proposed deadline can be met. He conceded the ministry needed to wait for the cabinet's decision on the transfer first. Should the cabinet disapprove of the transfer, the plan must be adjusted.
The new scheme must state clearly who is responsible for the task and how it would be carried out, Adm. Thira said, and that the airport must give utmost importance to safety concerns. Whether the transfer would take place before the Songkran Festival remains uncertain.
Minister Thira said he had assigned the Civil Aviation Department to meet with state agencies concerned to work out details of transferring some local flights back to Don Muang airport.
Lt. Pinit said other service infrastructure including airport shops, restaurants, passenger terminals, taxis and other transport links would be ready within a month. Total renovation budget stood at Bt33 million.
He accompanied reporters inspecting progress at Don Muang on Tuesday.
The old airport was decommissioned as Bangkok's primary airport in September when Suvarnabhumi was opened.
But cracks in the new airport's runways and taxiways prompted the Transport Ministry to recommend Monday to reopen Don Muang airport temporarily for domestic flights with no international connections to ease the burden on the new airport.
According to Lt. Pinit, Terminal 1 at Don Muang will be the main terminal servicing chartered flights. He expects about 5 million passengers to pass through Don Muang airport this year.
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Thai Women : Meet Matured Thai Women
Posted on: 11:50 pm on Jan. 30, 2007
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PussyLover 69
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Report from Bangkok Post dated Thursday 1 February 2007 :-
Engineer suspects airport cover-up
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An expert engineer yesterday voiced suspicion that people in the last Thaksin Shinawatra government covered over cracks in the runways at Suvarnabhumi airport. Tortrakul Yomnak, a member of Airports of Thailand (AoT), said like other engineers, he used to believe that cracks at the new airport were ''technical cracks'', which are not unusual during construction.
Mr Tortrakul also inspected the airport in 2005 after the Bangkok Post ran stories about cracks in the runways.
''I'd never thought there were real cracks on the runway until recently when I went back to inspect the airport, and I remembered that the runway looked so new, and that aroused my suspicion about whether there were cover-ups,'' he said at a forum at the Foreign Correspondents Club of Thailand last night.
Mr Tortrakul is also head of a panel looking into the causes of runway and taxiway cracks.
The panel was set up by AoT chairman Gen Saprang Kalayanamitr on Jan 23 to find the exact cause of the cracks that have appeared on the runways and taxiways at the four-month-old airport.
He conceded he did not take any action during his 2005 inspection even though it looked suspicious, saying nobody would dare to speak up against the airport when Mr Thaksin was in power. This was because Mr Thaksin had projected the airport as ''the pride of the nation'' and intimidated anyone who cast doubts on it.
''I feel I was used as a tool to clear the past government,'' he said.
Mr Tortrakul said more inspections would be made to see if the cracks were due to ''systematic failure'' - an engineering term referring to a very serious structural problem, mostly occurring when substandard soil is used in landfill - or whether the cracks are on the surface.
If the former is the case, it will take at least three years and a huge budget to repair the structure, he said.
Mr Tortrakul said samples of soil were taken from underneath the runway to check whether it was substandard and the result would be known in two weeks.
He said the ''new look'' runway has led to worries that there may be other cover-ups at the problem-plagued airport.
Mr Tortrakul proposed two options - either repair the cracks or dismantle the runways and rebuild them.
He said repairing the cracks may require special techniques which would cost more than a reconstruction.
This should be an important factor that the government had to take into consideration, he said.
He explained that engineering techniques used to reinforce the strength of surfaces - such as the installation of air-conditioning pipelines in the soil layers, to make the water absorbed by the soil into ice so it could carry more weight - would be very costly.
Questions may be raised over whether the cracked runways were worth repairing when compared to the costs for dismantling and rebuilding them, he said.
''The probe found that cracks have developed and spread quickly. This shows that the foundations of the taxiways were damaged,'' said Mr Tortrakul, who is to report the panel's findings to Transport Minister Theera Haocharoen tomorrow.
Deputy Transport Minister Sansern Wongcha-um yesterday explained to the National Legislative Assembly the AoT's decision to allow point-to-point domestic flights to return to Don Muang airport.
He said the repair of taxiways and the runway would affect services at Suvarnabhumi and that the transfer of some domestic flights to Don Muang airport would ease air-traffic congestion at the new airport.
NLA member Prapan Khunmee lashed out at AoT executives for failing to tell the truth about the safety of the new airport.
The construction of the airport had been plagued with corruption, he added.
He said the runways of the new airport were the most expensive in the world, with ground improvement alone costing around 26 billion baht.
Sub-standard soil had been used for the construction of the runways, causing them to develop cracks, he alleged.
Khamnoon Sitthisaman, another NLA member, feared the investigation into the alleged corruption at the airport would be blocked by members of the old power clique after the next general election.
He proposed the government set up a special agency specifically to solve problems at the airport
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Bangkok Women : Meet Beautiful Thai Girls
Posted on: 7:43 pm on Jan. 31, 2007
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DaffyDuck
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Quote: from PussyLover 69 on 2:14 pm on Jan. 31, 2007
airport officials are confident the facility would be re-opened in 45 days for non-connecting domestic flights.
Does everyone else also believe that this is such another frakking disaster waiting to happen?
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Thai Girls : Meet Active Thai Girls
Posted on: 10:41 pm on Jan. 31, 2007
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PussyLover 69
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Report from Bangkok Post dated Friday 2 February 2007 :-
Airport fee hike unjustified, says airlines
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A hefty increase in passenger service charges at airports run by the Airports of Thailand (AoT) went into effect quietly yesterday, as airlines questioned the justification for the move. The charge for international departure flights increased by 40% from 500 baht to 700 baht, and doubled for domestic flights, from 50 baht to 100 baht.
Airlines said the steep rises are unjustified when passengers are still putting up with poor service and facilities at the troubled Suvarnabhumi airport.
Most of the problems which have annoyed many passengers passing through Bangkok's new airport since its opening on Sept 28, ranging from long waits for luggage to insufficient toilet facilities, poor air-conditioning and general uncleanliness, have not been tackled, they said.
The new fees for international departures at Suvarnabhumi and other AoT airports means passengers will be paying more than passengers do when they leave Singapore and Kuala Lumpur, and slightly less than Hong Kong.
Kuala Lumpur International Airport charges international passengers 51 ringgit, including six ringgit for a new security fee _ the equivalent of 519 baht.
The passenger service charge at Singapore's Changi is S$21 (about 489 baht), while at Hong Kong International Airport, passengers pay HK$153 (about 705 baht).
Airline executives said the airports of Singapore, Hong Kong and Malaysia, which are competing with Bangkok's airport, can justify their fees as they offer greater value than Suvarnabhumi and AoT airports.
''It is unfair for passengers to be penalised by the increased charge, on top of the poor service they are getting at Suvarnabhumi,'' said one executive.
Another said the airport should have suspended the increase until authorities can ensure that passengers get the kind of service they deserve.
AoT says the increase is needed to help raise money to fix the construction flaws at the airport, including cracked and damaged runways.
It would provide the promised returns to shareholders, it said. AoT is 70% state-owned.
In the last fiscal year, AoT posted a 41% jump in net profit to 10.4 billion baht.
With earnings before interest and tax of 64% in 2006, AoT is the most profitable airport company in Asia and among the top five in the world.
Starting from yesterday, airlines were told to collect the charge on behalf of AoT, which previously required passengers to purchase passenger service charge tickets before entering immigration.
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Thai Women : Meet Matured Thai Women
Posted on: 9:00 pm on Feb. 1, 2007
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PussyLover 69
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Report from Bangkok Post dated Friday 2 February 2007 :-
Firms, MPs 'colluded' on airport - Contractors, heads could be charged
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A sub-panel under the Assets Scrutiny Committee has found that two contractors of Airports of Thailand Plc colluded with 22 politicians and officials accused of involvement in the ''overpriced'' procurement of a baggage-handling system for Suvarnabhumi airport, a source in the inquiry team said yesterday. The system included the 26 CTX bomb-scanning machines.
The sub-panel, chaired by Amnuay Tantara, will ask the ASC on Monday to file a complaint against ITO Joint Venture and Quatrotec as well as six of their representatives of criminal offences for their alleged collusion. Its decision was based on the testimony of witnesses that indicated the two companies had colluded with the 22 accused people to force AoT to accept the overpriced quotations, the source said.
The ASC has already filed a complaint against deposed prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, ex-transport minister Suriya Juengrungruangkit and 20 officials of criminal offences for hiring the two contractors despite their lack of experience, and for accepting their overpriced quotations.
According to the findings revealed partly by the ASC, the AoT board in 2003 hired ITO Joint Venture to design a baggage-handling system for Suvarnabhumi and contracted Quatrotec, which was established only shortly before the deal, to verify the design.
The job contracted to Quatrotec was also found to have overlapped with that of another AoT contractor.
It took Quatrotec only one day to approve ITO's multi-billion-baht design.
ITO was also allowed to quote 3.99 billion baht for providing and installing the baggage-handling system. But the firm instead paid its sub-contractor 3.09 billion baht to do the job.
Its quotation for the procurement of the CTX machines was also found to be higher than their real value by 665 million baht. When the CTX deal with ITO was scrapped, AoT purchased the machines directly from GE InVision at an aggregate ''overpriced'' amount of US$35 million (about 1.2 billion baht) with ITO acting as buyer of the machines.
The source said six representatives of the firms who would face criminal charges included Tawatchai Suthiprapa of ITO, and Woravit Wisutchai of Quatrotec. The two represented the companies in signing the deals with AoT and in receiving payments. There is one foreigner in the group.
If the ASC agrees with the inquiry team's proposal, the companies and the six people will be charged with criminal offences under Articles 3 and 11 of the Act Governing Wrongdoings of Officials of State Agencies, and Article 157 of the Criminal Code.
ASC chairman Nam Yimyaem yesterday refused to consider a request by the Agriculture and Cooperatives Ministry for advice on whether it could extend a rubber sapling deal with Charoen Pokphand Seeds.
Mr Nam said the ASC had nothing to do with the matter and the ministry should make its own decision whether to pursue that contract.
CP Seeds won the bidding to provide 90 million rubber saplings for the government's rubber farm expansion programme, which was found to be plagued by irregularities.
Agriculture Minister Thira Sutabutra said the ministry may have to extend the deadline for CP Seeds to deliver the remaining saplings. CP Seeds declined to comment.
Banjerd Singkaneti, who chairs the ASC's panel investigating the rubber project, said the ASC would also look into allegations that a Buri Ram politician had exploited the project by obtaining a number of saplings for planting on his own land.
Meanwhile, Taweesak Palayasut, of the Office of the Auditor-General, has resigned from the Banjerd panel citing his heavy workload.
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Bangkok Girls : Meet Attractive Thai Girls
Posted on: 9:04 pm on Feb. 1, 2007
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