I have a story on the Wall St. Journal‘s Southeast Asia Real Time blog today called “Will Bangkok’s International Airport Stay Dry?”
It begins:
As flooding continues to swamp outer Bangkok, some residents and international travelers have been pondering a critical question: Will the city’s international airport stay dry?
For now, it looks as if the airport most likely won’t be badly affected by floodwaters, given its advanced flood defenses. But the unexpected has already happened in other parts of Thailand, which is suffering from its worst floods in decades, so travelers are advised to keep watch.
The facility, Suvarnabhumi, is located on the city’s eastern outskirts — a key pathway for floodwaters flowing from the north around Bangkok into the Gulf of Thailand. Suvarnabhumi is a crucial regional aviation hub and one Asia’s busiest airports, with some 800 flights per day and an average of 100,000 daily passengers, according to government figures.