Speaking on the sidelines of a seminar on the direction of Suvarnabhumi Airport held

by Krungthep Turakij, Kulya said she believed there was a good chance to resolve  the problem.

"If AOT must open bidding to find a new duty-free-shop operator and manager of the commercial area at Suvarnabhumi Airport, it should be quickly carried out, tentatively not longer than a year," Kulya said.

She noted that a quick process would ensure that AOT's revenues were affected as little as possible after the termination of two contracts with King Power.

"Currently, AOT receives revenue-sharing of Bt2 billion a year from duty-free shops," she said.

Previously, AOT's board resolved to stand by the recent Council of State ruling that its two contracts with King Power be nullified for alleged intention to violate the Public-Private Joint Venture Act.

Meanwhile, King Power has rejected the accusations and called a meeting with 60 shop operators, urging them to proceed with business as usual.

However, independent AOT director Tortrakul Yomnak said of AOT's current total revenues, commercial revenues amounted to a minor proportion of 36.8 per cent, compared with 63.2 per cent from fee income.

He is also confident the

termination of the two contracts can proceed without legal constraints.

Kulya said that the reopen-

ing of Don Muang Airport would help AOT save Bt47 billion

in investment costs, which is

the amount set for investing

in Suvarnabhumi Airport's second phase. This excludes interest payments of Bt2.8 billion annually.

She said if the second phase needed to be constructed, it would have to proceed promptly to its full capacity of accommodating 45 million passengers. The airport now accommodates 42 million passengers.

Kulya said AOT expected

the airport to become an avia-

tion hub for Asia and be considered one of the world's top 10 airports.

"AOT has targeted Suvarnabhumi to become one of the world's leading airports by 2009," she said.

She said the airport was now resolving all the problems related to customer services for both passengers and airlines.

Serirat Prasutanond, general manager of Suvarnabhumi Airport and senior executive vice president of AOT, admitted that Suvarnabhumi's services were still at the three-star level compared with those at other leading world airports, even though its terminal is ranked at the five-star level.

He said, however, the new airport was expected to upgrade its level to four-and-a-half stars by 2009 by exploiting aggressive strategic marketing with new airlines from China and India.

Watcharapong Thongrung

The Nation