Carriers get back to business at Suvarnabhumi

Thai Airways International and Cathay Pacific Airways will resume normal flights at Suvarnabhumi from 11am today after the airport formally reopens, while other major airlines will resume scheduled flights in the coming days.

THAI's emergency check-in counters at Bitec were closed at midnight, with its counters at Suvarnabhumi open from 6am today.

Emirates, Qantas and Jet Airways announced the resumption of normal commercial flights from Suvarnabhumi from tomorrow. Jet Airways will operate two flights from New Delhi to Suvarnabhumi today.

Lufthansa will resume normal operations on Sunday. Passengers with travel plans on or before that day should visit www.lufthansa.com for the latest details.

PB Air said flights to Da Nang in Vietnam would resume from Suvarnabhumi tomorrow.

Regular PB Air flights to the domestic destinations of Lampang, Nan, Nakhon Phanom, Sakon Nakhon, Roi Et and Buri Ram will resume tomorrow.

Airports of Thailand acting president Serirat Prasutanond said all public transport services at Suvarnabhumi were ready to resume normal operations. They cover scheduled buses, vans, limousines, Airport Express buses and shuttle buses.

"There will be no problem reopening Suvarnabhumi at 11am on Friday. As all public transport services are operating as usual, there will certainly be no problem for passengers," he said.

Taxis will resume operations at the second floor of the terminal building tomorrow, while the long-term parking lots are ready for service.

Qantas executive general manager John Borghetti said the airline had received approval from the Thai authorities to resume flights and was also undertaking its own operational assessment of Suvarnabhumi Airport. Since the airport's closure of Suvarnabhumi on November 25, Qantas has been operating its scheduled Sydney-Bangkok-London return services via Singapore.

"In consultation with the Australian government, our priority this week has been to provide opportunities for Qantas and British Airways customers and Australian nationals to leave Thailand," he said.

Qantas has operated three relief flights between Phuket and Singapore since Tuesday. In total, the airline will have carried around 1,200 people out of Thailand.

"As soon as it was announced that Suvarnabhumi would be reopened, and following our own operational assessment of the airport, we began the necessary planning to resume services."

The first Qantas flight - QF2 London-Bangkok-Sydney - is scheduled to return to Bangkok in the early evening tomorrow. It will be followed soon after by QF1 from Sydney.

Northwest Airlines, meanwhile, also announced it would resume scheduled flights from tomorrow. A flight from Tokyo is scheduled to arrive at midnight today.

Northwest insisted that it had no plans to stop flying to and from Thailand.

From today, Cathay Pacific Airways will operate four flights from Hong Kong to Bangkok and three from Bangkok to Hong Kong daily.

While the airport was closed, Cathay Pacific used Boeing 777-300 aircraft to help passengers and crew left stranded at U-tapao Airport.

British Airways is arranging for an extra Boeing 777 with 272 seats to leave Phuket today at 4.30am.

Richard Vaughan, Emirates senior vice president Commercial Operations, East Asia and Australasia, said: "Emirates is pleased to note that Bangkok's international airport is slowly resuming operations. As the main terminal is still undergoing checks and cleaning, and flights are being allowed to operate from a smaller facility at the airport, we will only resume operations with the daily, scheduled EK372/373 service between Dubai and Bangkok starting December 6.

"We will continue to closely monitor the situation and will resume all operations once the situation has returned to full normalcy. The safety of our passengers and crew is of utmost importance and we would not wish to compromise it in any way."

The Dubai-based airline had previously operated a recovery flight each to U-tapao Airport and Chiang Mai Airport, bringing back close to 600 passengers. It has also offered passengers the option to reroute their travel from alternative airports in Thailand and other Southeast Asian points such as Kuala Lumpur, Singapore or Hong Kong.

Emirates' third recovery flight, a Boeing 777-300, departed Dubai on Wednesday for U-tapao. It will return today carrying 380 passengers. The fourth recovery flight will depart Dubai today. At present the flight is scheduled to operate to U-tapao, but it could be rerouted to Bangkok if the on-ground situation improves further.

During the airport closure, Jet Airways provided relief flights for more than 1,500 passengers, flying to India from U-tapao.