Cobra Swamp Airport Opens

Thaksin Plane Lands in Pattaya, Not Cobra Swamp

It was a nice, sunny day, so Thaksin took a songtao out to Don Muang and boarded the first DC-9 flight to Cobra Swamp to prove something or another. Yes, Suvarabumputri airport is now in operation as reported today in The Nation:

The Nation
Sept 30, 2005

There were more than 1,000 guests, including a major contingent from the press corps, at Suvarnabhumi to celebrate the birth of the new airport, which is expected to propel the Thai aviation industry into the ranks of the global great.

You have to be Thai to feel the blood running through your entire body. For the sight of Thaksin and his entourage celebrating the grandeur of the new airport at the tarmac was indescribable. It was a pride of galactic proportion. Since we’re a great nation, we deserve the world’s greatest airport. Without Thaksin, we would be deprived of this great feeling for the Bt150-billion airport that will put Heathrow of London, John F Kennedy of New York, Chok Lap Kok of Hong Kong and Changi of Singapore to shame.

With this grand design, it is no accident that the Suvarnabhumi International Airport is racking up so many amazing feats surely worth of being recorded in the book “Guinness World Records”. Here are a few examples of why Suvarnabhumi is so amazing:

1. It has taken 45 years – the world’s longest period to get an airport up and running – to design, redesign, build and rebuild Suvarnabhumi International Airport. Even the ancient Egyptians, the ancient Chinese and the ancient Khmer could not build their pyramids, the Great Wall of China and Angkor Wat faster. Even though we have been waiting almost half a century, it was well worth it.

2. Suvarnabhumi claims the tallest air-traffic control tower in the world. From up there, air traffic controllers can most probably see, with their bare eyes, tourists sunbathing on Pattaya Beach. This will prevent them from becoming sleepy when they are on duty. The biblical Tower of Babel might be worthy of comparison to the tower at Suvarnabhumi Tower (though unfortunately it collapsed).

3. Suvarnabhumi has the world’s largest runway, capable of accommodating any size of aircraft that Boeing or Airbus plans to manufacture. Another equally controversial emergency decree will be issued to bar vendors from selling their food along the new airport’s runway.

4. Thaksin is now presiding over what will be the longest time to have elapsed between the soft opening of an airport and its grand opening. It will not be until June or October next year (or could it be longer?) before commercial aircraft start to take off and land at Suvarnabhumi. It is not clear why he has celebrated the opening of the new airport that, well, has yet to open. But a celebration is something we should always take pride in.

5. Suvarnabhumi is to maintain the world’s most expensive and effective operations for keeping the sky and the ground clear in order to ensure safe landing of aircraft. This will be challenging because flocks of birds, particularly open-billed storks, nest in the Suvarnabhumi area. In fact they have been living there happily with cobras since time immemorial. Indeed, the site of the new airport is called Nong Ngu Hao (cobra swamp). The airport officials are afraid that the birds might pose a danger to aircraft during take-off and landing if they happen to fly into the engines. So they have commissioned F-16 fighting aircraft to go airborne at a moment’s notice to scare off the birds. Just before the prime minister’s aircraft landed, it was shown just how effective the F-16 was at performing this important task.

And on the ground, death squads that are out of rotation from duty down South will be assigned to use their air rifles to keep stray dogs from sneaking onto the runway.

6. The Novotel Suvarnabhumi will claim the world’s largest hotel lobby. You may want to take a skateboard with you, just in case.

7. Suvarnabhumi Airport will be equipped with the world’s most expensive bomb-detection machines. It will also have the largest number. There will be 26 CTX machines there. Most other airports have only eight or 10.

With these impressive world records, we have to feel proud of our new airport. Better late than never.

Posted by: philmac@farangaffairs.com on Sep 30, 05 | 5:01 am | Profile

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