Heavenly Land? Hardly!

The new Suwarnabhumi Airport in Bangkok is so bad that… (insert your favorite punch line here). The name means heavenly land. But it's anything but heavenly!What strikes me as I read and talk about the new BKK airport with others is not that there are problems it’s that they are so openly discussed. Even in Thailand, which has one of the freest presses in the region the criticism has been more than the usual outburst against poor quality construction.This time, there are politics at stake—the lingering image of former PM Taksin and his alleged corruption and cronyism. Most commentaries on the quality of the airport includes at least one comment to the effect of “this just shows how corrupt Taksin was.”Indeed most papers and blogs are saying that the airports failures are directly related to Taksin’s willingness to enrich crony’s and himself at the country’s expense—everything from design flaws, to runway cracks to broken pipes to a lack of toilets are apparently his fault. Not that they will ever be proven, but certainly there are corrupt deals that were made to gain airport contracts—I defy you to name one projects in Asia that isn’t done that way. But while the Baht stops with Taksin, or did, it also passed through the hands of thousands of others along the way.Thailand needs to move beyond the blame game and solve the problems. I’m not saying let Taksin off the hook, but do something constructive (literally) with the airport problems. Regardless of who ultimately is/was responsible for the problems at Suwarnabhumi, the issues need to be solved and repaired quickly. The rash of bad international press is directly effecting the economy and tourism—when combined with the coup that replaced Taksin and the continual ethnic unrest in the South, Thailand is losing it’s tourist paradise luster.