Airports of Thailand Plc (AoT) says it has moved to deal with the problems related to soft surfaces at Suvarnabhumi airport that pose safety concerns for aircraft.
Sirote Duangratana, general manager of Suvarnabhumi airport, insisted that AoT had not overlooked the issues raised by the International Air Transport Association (IATA).
The airport has had both immediate and long-term action plans in place for quite some time to resolve the "soft spots" on the tarmac, taxiways and apron areas where aeroplanes became stuck, he told the Bangkok Post on Friday.
As a short-term solution, AoT has completed resurfacing five of the seven problem areas and will soon finish the remaining two.
The airport has also allocated a 2.5-billion-baht budget to convert a total of 700,000 square metres in areas used by airplanes into stronger concrete from fragile asphalt.
The areas to be concreted over represent 35% of the overall 2.8 million sq m used by aircraft at Suvarnabhumi. Areas measuring 1 million sq m, mostly aprons, have already been converted to concrete.
Mr Sirote expects engineering design for laying concrete on the 700,000-sq-m area will take five months. Actual construction will begin toward year-end and take 960 days.
He insisted the resurfaced tarmac, taxiways and apron areas with asphalt posed no safety threats to aircraft movements.
At a media briefing in Bangkok on Thursday, IATA director-general Tony Tyler branded the constant resurfacing with asphalt an unacceptable patchwork solution and said airlines literally needed a “concrete” solution. He complained that aeroplanes frequently became stuck in the soft surfaces that were the result of substandard materials.