The plot of land occupied by the airport with an approximate area of 8,000 acres (324 km²) was purchased in 1973, but the Thammasat student uprising on October 6 of the same year succeeded in overthrowing the military government of dictator Thanom Kittikachorn and the project was shelved. After a series of ups and downs, the "New Bangkok International Airport" company (NBIA) was formed in 1996. Due to political and economic instabilities, notably the Asian financial crisis of 1997, the civil construction began six years later in January 2002. The airport is located in a once low-lying marsh, formerly known as Nong Ngu Hao ("Cobra Swamp"), which took about 5 years (1997 - 2001) to clear through land reclamation. In 2005, the construction supervision and management was transferred to the Airports of Thailand PLC, while the NBIA company was dissolved. |
The airport was due to open in late 2005, but a series of budget overruns, construction flaws, political interference and allegations of corruption continues to plague the project. After much speculation, Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra announced that the airport would be open by September 2006 at the latest. Symbolic first test flights involving two Thai Airways aircraft were held on September 29, 2005, a previously announced deadline for opening.
Full tests of the airport, with seats sold to the public, took place on July 3 and July 29, 2006. Six airlines – Thai Airways International, Nok Air, Thai Air Asia, Bangkok Airways, PBAir and One-Two-GO – used the airport as a base for 20 domestic flights. The first international test flights were conducted on September 1, 2006. Two THAI's aircraft, B747-400 and A300-600, simultaneously departed the airport on 9.19am to Singapore and Hongkong. On 3.50pm the same aircraft flew back and made concurrent touchdowns on runways 19L and 19R. These test flights demonstrated the readiness of the airport to handle heavy traffic.
On 15 September 2006, the airport started limited operations with Jetstar Asia Airways operating three flights daily to Singapore and Thai Airways International operating some domestic flights to Phitsanulok, Chiang Mai and Ubon Ratchathani. Bangkok Airways moved on 21 September, AirAsia and Thai AirAsia followed suit on 25 September and on 26 September Nok Air moved to Suvarnabhumi Airport. During this initial phase, as well as in the previous tests, the airport used the temporary IATA code NBK.
Suvarnabhumi officially opened at 3:00am on September 28, 2006, taking over all flights from Don Muang. The first flight to arrive was Lufthansa Cargo flight LH8442 from Mumbai at 3:05am. The first commercial arrival was from Japan Airlines at 3:30am. The first passenger arrival was Aerosvit flight VV171 from Kiev at 4:30am, and the first cargo departure was Saudi Arabian Airlines flight SV-984 to Riyadh at 5:00am.[ Aerosvit also had the first passenger departure (VV172 to Kiev) around 5:30am.
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