A little trivia for Suvarnabhumi Airport.

Suvarnabhumi (pronounced “Su-Wana-Poom”) means “The Golden Land”.

Developing Thailand as the aviation and air transport hub of Southeast Asia is among the priorities set by the Royal Thai Government.

One of the ways this can be achieved is to develop Suvarnabhumi Airport to achieve the highest international standards, to ensure its support for the rapidly increasing air traffic demand corresponding to the need of aviation business worldwide. His Majesty the King has graciously conferred the name of �Suvarnabhumi Airport� which means the �Golden Land� and is located in Bang Phli District, Samut Prakan province, covering an area of approximately 3,200 hectares.

The Suvarnabhumi Airport, which is due to replace the overloaded and unexpandable Bangkok International Airport (Don Muang), is scheduled to open in June 2006. However, this date may be delayed until September 2006 for testing and validation by ICAO.

The ‘New Bangkok International Airport’ company was formed in 1996 but due to political and economic chaos it took six years for construction to start. The new airport has also been delayed countless times due to cost overruns and construction problems.

The new airport is located on a boggy, 3,100ha site in the Samut Prakarn province of Thailand at Nong Ngu Hao (translated as Cobra Swamp), 30km east of Bangkok. Construction of Suvarnabhumi Airport began in January 2002.

Don Muang will be relegated to domestic-only status when the new airport opens. Don Muang is currently the world’s 22nd busiest airport and the busiest in Southeast Asia, but it has already reached its full capacity at over 37 million passengers per year.

Suvarnabhumi will be able to cope with 30 million passengers per year when it first opens, a figure which will be increased to 45 million within a short space of time. Following further expansion phases, including two additional runways, it will cater for over 100 million passengers per year.

Source: http://www.airportsuvarnabhumi.com