Currently, arriving planes have to spend 10 to 15 minutes taxiing during busy times at the existing Don Muang airport, which is serving an above-capacity 38.5 million passengers a year.

But THAI president Apinan Sumanaseni said the new Suvarnabhumi Airport had much more space to accommodate flights, which would cut down on taxiing time and save on fuel expenses.

"After moving to the new airport, we could save over Bt1 billion, which accounts for 1 to 2 per cent of our total oil expense a year," Apinan said.

Amid soaring global oil prices, THAI said last month its fuel costs in the three months to June jumped 21.1 per cent year on year to Bt14.8 billion.

Yesterday, THAI staged four international test flights at Suvarnabhumi Airport, carrying some 1,200 passengers. The airport is scheduled to open on September 28.

The first international test flight was to Singapore using an Airbus 300-600. The second was a Boeing 747-400 flight to Hong Kong.

THAI will operate five flights out of Suvarnabhumi on three domestic routes beginning on September 15. The destinations are Phitsanulok, Ubon Ratchathani and Chiang Mai.

Other domestic flights will continue to operate from Don Muang. The company will move its operations centre to Suvarnabhumi on September 28.

Suvarnabhumi - which means "golden land" - has become notorious for its delays. The project has been in the works for four decades, but has been hit by a series of construction problems and graft allegations.

The new airport will initially be able to handle 45 million passengers a year, a figure that could rise to 120 million. Thailand hopes the facility will help it beat off Malaysia and Singapore to become the region's aviation hub.

Meanwhile, all systems of Aeronautical Radio of Thailand (Aerothai) are now fully in place to support commercial operations at Suvarnabhumi Airport, Thai News Agency reported.

Aerothai demonstrated its full capacity and potential yesterday morning when two THAI international flights simultanenously took off from Suvarnabhumi's eastern and western runways.

The 3,700-metre eastern runway and 4,000-metre western runway are 2.2 kilometres apart.

Thirty-five Aerothai air-traffic control officials - the agency's full personnel capacity for its standard operational services - were on duty to serve the test run of the national airline.

"It's an unprecedented record, historically, as Aerothai had never [previously] served any simultanenous flight take-off," said Bhuddawan Noirod, who heads Aerothai public relations department.

"It shows the readiness with full potential and capacity of Aerothai's overall systems at Suvarnabhumi Airport," she said.