• 
• 

In their hands were small clappers, and they cheerfully clapped them on a day when thousands of travellers were stranded at Suvarnabhumi Airport, where no flights could take off or land due to the protesters' siege.

While business operators were grumbling over the damage, it is good to know that some of the affected travellers remained cheerful. But I doubt if all those inconvenienced would share their positive thinking. An insider recalled that on Tuesday evening, when the siege began, several travellers from Vientiane, Laos, were anxiously discussing the possibility of their 10pm flight landing at Suvarnabhumi.

As they did manage to land, the next question was how could they get out of the passenger terminal when thousands of protesters had swarmed into the airport and blocked the entrances and exits. One of the passengers was a Lao minister, who could not get out to the embassy's vehicle waiting for him. A team of commandos was commissioned in disguise as PAD members and got into the lounge to escort the minister out of the airport.

Hopefully, he was not moved too much by all the excitement.

As news spread that incoming and outgoing flights at Suvarnabhumi were suspended and some incoming flights were being diverted to Don Mueang Airport, passengers on flights due to land at Don Mueang also fretted about long delays.

Among the affected passengers was Plew Trivisvavet, president and chief executive officer of Ch Karnchang. He was scheduled to leave Udon Thani at 11am, but the take-off of the 50-minute flight was at 1pm.

Some journalists who attended Ch Karnchang's contract-signing in Vientiane on Tuesday grumbled about the itinerary. They had to board a flight to Udon Thani and continued by bus to Vientiane, as direct flights to Vientiane were fully booked.

On the way back the next day, they had to return to the province to board a 3pm flight back to Bangkok. Learning about Plew's flight delay, they anxiously looked out of the terminal towards the parking bay - where no plane was parked. Minutes before the flight time, they sighed with relief when an aircraft landed.

"Indeed we're lucky that we couldn't find tickets for flights to Vientiane. Or, we wouldn't know our destiny, as our return flights would have been scheduled to land at Suvarnabhumi," said a journalist.

Her positive thinking deserves accolades.