Only yesterday I read in a magazine that the AOT was not providing any taxis at the airport. To my amazement, the new system was to have passengers take a shuttle bus from the arrival gate to a site located somewhere on the outskirts of the airport.

I had a business dinner last night with some very prominent business people and when I explained this to them, they seriously thought I was making a joke. Having convinced them it was true, you can imagine their reaction. To have even thought of this in the planning is beyond any human thinking. Can you just imagine the queues and double and triple handling of luggage that would be needed. Who will load the luggage into the bus and then take it out again? Who will have to pay for this labour, or are the passengers expected to do it? Again, it is only the passenger that suffers.

So just recently I read in the paper that after protests from the test passengers, the AOT is now going to allow taxis up to second level for arriving passengers. Let's think clearly about this: if there has never been any planning for taxis to pick people up at the terminals, how is it going to work? Are we back to the Don Muang scenario of long queues while some person sits in a booth and takes forever to write out tickets for everyone at peak times? We had all hoped there would be considerable improvements for the passengers. Very disappointing that there will apparently be no improvements for the taxi service.

They have had perfect role models in Singapore and Hong Kong now for many years. No one waits more than a minute or two, if that, to get a taxi. The difference is that at these other two airports the authorities actually care about the travelling public and plan for their well-being, speed and ease of movement to and from their airports.

We business travellers are so upset over this total lack of planning and we assume there'll be no improvement in the airport taxi service.

A caring passenger

Bangkok

-----------------------------------

Airlines should just consider banning all carry-on luggage

As a response to the recent terrorism movements, airports around the world have increased their safety protocols by limiting the items that passengers are not allowed on board the aircraft. After September 11, sharp objects, flammable substances and lighters were the primary target. Five years later, water bottles and objects containing other liquids were added to the hazardous-items list. It seems like the attackers are gaining satisfaction through both the slump in the world's economy, and the safety turmoil for the airline industry.

My physical therapist and I were watching the seven o'clock news one morning during my session, and the subject was the safety of air travel. I was amused when the reporter started his report by saying, "why don't they just stop passengers from taking carry-on baggage aboard overall". I gave it some thought and was wondering whether the FAA would consider taking advice like this from us passengers. Instead of adding more items to the banned list, which will only create more confusion among passengers and increase the time it takes to check-in and go through security check points , airlines should just consider banning all carry-ons?

Longer check-in times and burdensome security procedures have increased the customers' dissatisfaction with air travel. And now they face the possibility of having to leave things behind because they were not aware of what has been "newly added" to the list. This whole business also increases the costs of the air industry because of the extra manpower and resources dedicated to overseeing security arrangements.

I think that it would be worth thinking about how we can cut the waits and costs out of air travel by not allowing hand luggage on board and focusing security efforts more on luggage X-rays and inspections?

Again, this is just a thought from a graduate student in negotiation and conflict management, who also happens to be a frequent air traveller that faces the same threats and hassles as everyone else.

Jiraporn Heath

Maryland, United States

---------------------------------------

Thailand should not be so quick to sign FTA with the US

In an article named "Stand up to Uncle Bully" by Shawn W Crispin in Asian Times Online we find the following:

"After September 11, 2001, [US Ambassador to Thailand Ralph "Skip"] Boyce was Washington's point man in chastising Indonesia's government for not taking more seriously the 'war on terror' in the region. Now, Boyce is the highly visible spokesman for Washington's new drive to reshape its commercial relations with Southeast Asia more to the United States' advantage, partly through lopsided free-trade agreements (FTAs) and partly through good old-fashioned bullying - as demonstrated through Boyce's lobbying effort at Thailand's Health Ministry."

"My" government in the US is in the hands of crony capitalists who are keen to cut deals that will personally enrich themselves and they're willing to share a (very) little of the take with a (very) few of their counterparts in the countries they'd like to subvert with their FTAs.

Thailand is a sitting duck for this sort of wheeling and dealing since all the strings pass through a single pair of hands, making the "least profit for the smallest number" lucrative for a very small circle's interests.

Beware the bilateral FTA. There are much more lucrative agreements to be had for the Thai nation.

"Southeast Asian policymakers should bear in mind that very soon the US may not be as attractive a destination for their products as in the past. Collapsing housing prices and spiralling consumer and national debt levels promise to dry up America's once insatiable appetite for consumer goods. Rather, regional governments would be wise to expend their trade energies in forging closer ties with less demanding, higher-growth-potential China, India and petrodollar-rich Middle Eastern regimes, and less on deliberating unequal pacts with the US."

That's if the single pair of hands in this country can be kept from once again lining its owner's pockets at the nation's expense.

John Francis Lee

Chiang Rai

--------------------------------------

Whatever happened to  all the good leaders?

It has been reliably reported that Iran's president is now busy clearing out his country's universities of all moderate professors and lecturers, who will be replaced by Islamic extremists, thus turning the Iranian universities into yet more Islamic nightmares. One recalls that Hitler did pretty much the same kind of thing and burned a great many important books in the process. Considering the Iranian president's erratic behaviour and his ignorant claims that "the holocaust didn't really happen" or that Israel "should be wiped of the face of the map", one has to assume that he is one of Adolf's more fervent admirers; certainly just as mentally defective.

What is so utterly appalling about many of these Islamic countries, is that so many of their leaders masquerade as "men of God" when in fact they are nothing of the kind, they are simply killers and oppressors of mankind - and especially, through sharia law, oppressors of women.

How is it that in the modern world, so many weird and quite awful bullies manage to rise to the top of their particular political trees - many of them, astonishingly - elected? Bracketed alongside Ahmadinejad as among the most foul of leaders, must be people like Mugabe and Kim Jong-Il, both of whom so oppress their people as to keep them starving and in the most abject poverty though, judging by their own appearances, they don't go short of food themselves.

Then, of course, there is the president of Sudan who, with the problems in the Darfur region, is busy turning away peacekeepers and others who can actually help these unfortunate people.

Then America has that ignorant, interfering fellow, George W Bush, the man responsible for the deaths of so many thousands in Iraq. He's another religious nut and now a proven liar. And, of course, we cannot forget Thailand with its own greedy bully-boy desperate to stay in control and managing to fool some of the people all of the time.

Whatever happened to the days when statesmen ruled a large part of the world? Men of stature who were really keen on bettering mankind? Men like Roosevelt, de Gaulle, Churchill, Macmillan and the like? And more recently, Clinton? (And please don't muddle up his sexuality with his ability.) Do such men no longer enter politics? Is it just a dream that these men of intellect and integrity truly cared about the state of humanity?

Regrettably, by their actions, so many of the current leaders show, again and again, that in their lust for power, they care nothing for their countries and the lot of the common man. It is truly tragic.

Henry Ashe

Bangkok

------------------------------------

Whatever Irwin's faults, he was definitely a success

Regarding the recent demise of Steve Irwin, I would like to say that to me, young Steve seemed to be simply a rugged, unsophisticated, good-natured bloke from the bush - albeit one savvy enough to be making loads of money from his international circus act/freak show. Evidently, the "Crocodile Hunter's" rough charms worked better on young people and big old crocodiles than on the old. 

Ida Bufalo 

Bangkok

----------------------------------------

A higher issue is at stake in the secret prison debate

Bill Cymbalsky ["The US does not lie, it just fools its enemies", Letters, September 10] totally misses the point - if indeed he is aware of it - in his letter about the US's secret prisons.

Leading nations of the world are expected to set the standards for others to follow. The US is clearly in breach of international law and in doing so cannot claim to be any better than any other rogue nation with contempt for civilised principles.

A Warner

Bangkok