oneworld member airlines are preparing to move operations at alliance hub Bangkok to the city’s new airport Suvarnabhumi later this week. Services by all the alliance’s carriers will depart from and arrive at the new facility with effect from Thursday (28 September).

The first oneworld flight to arrive at the new airport is scheduled to be Cathay Pacific’s CX709 from Hong Kong, due to land at Surarnabhumi at 23:50 on Wednesday.

Four of oneworld’s current member airlines serve Bangkok:

Cathay Pacific offers up to seven daily round trips to and from its Hong Kong hub, dailies to and from Singapore, four round trips a week to and from Colombo, four to and from Dubai, operating via Mumbai, and three to and from Karachi.
British Airways and Qantas both operate daily services to and from London and Sydney.
Finnair has a daily schedule to and from its Helsinki hub.
All three of the carriers lining up to join the alliance early next year also operate there:

Japan Airlines, with twice-dailies to and from Tokyo Narita increasing to thrice daily from the end of next month, and dailies to and from both Nagoya and Osaka Kansai.
Malev, three times a week to and from its Budapest hub from mid November.
Royal Jordanian, five round trips to and from its Amman base.
In line with the alliance’s policy to co-locate its member airlines together at airports wherever there are opportunities and it makes sense to do so, its carriers serving Bangkok will be housed adjacent to one another in the new airport’s West Wing.

British Airways, Cathay Pacific and Qantas will have check-in desks in zone N, with JAL in zone R and Finnair, Mal̩v and Royal Jordanian across the lobby in zone S.

Suvarnabhumi - pronounced “su-wan-na-poom” and meaning Golden Land - is 30 kms east of Bangkok. It will have an initial capacity for 45 million passengers and three million tonnes of cargo a year. It will take over the three-letter IATA airport code BKK from the city’s old airport. A railway linking the airport with the city centre is due to open in 2008.

—Take an airport tour at www.bangkokairportonline.com

The oneworld alliance won World’s Leading Airline Alliance at this year’s World Travel Awards.

Royal Jordanian moves

Royal Jordanian will move its operations and airport services offices in Bangkok, Thailand, from the ageing and overcrowded Don Muang airport to Suvarnabhumi International Airport on Sept. 28, 2006.

Bangkok’s brand new international airport is one of the most gigantic airports in Asia and internationally; it has the tallest control tower (132.2 m) and the largest single building and airport terminal (563,000 m?) in the world.

The airport, located about 25 kilometers east of Bangkok, is capable of handling 45 million passengers and 3 million tons of cargo per year, averaging 76 flights per hour. Additionally, it encloses a colossal hangar for aircraft maintenance that is able to take in 3 Airbus A380 aircraft at one time, and a building for catering, that is part of Thai Airways, with a productivity capability of 85,000 meals daily.

The airport has 2 parallel runways (60 m wide, 4,000 m and 3,700 m long) and 2 parallel taxiways to accommodate simultaneous departures and arrivals. The main terminal of the airport consists of seven floors; the second is dedicated to arrivals, the fourth to departures. The latter has 10 islands; each island has 36 check-in counters and another 10 standby counters for supervision and follow-ups on the flights with the most modern and automated communication equipment.

Suvarnabhumi International Airport contains seven wide concourses (A, B, C, D, E, F and G). It has a total of 120 parking bays (51 with contact gates and 69 remote gates) and five of these are capable of accommodating Airbus A380 aircraft.

Royal Jordanian’s airport services’ office is situated in concourse G; it also has a maintenance office situated on the ramp for the station’s maintenance engineer. The airline is intending to refurbish all its office assets bringing it in line with its global image and the modern airport housing it.

In 1975, the Bangkok station was added to Royal Jordanian’s route network; now the airline operates 5 weekly non-stop flights to the Thai capital, using the wide-bodied Airbus A340.

The name Suvarnabhumi (pronounced su-wan-na-poom) was chosen by HM King Bhumibol Adulyadej which means “the golden land”, specifically referring to the continental Indochina.
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