by James Goyder
I have observed the Makkasan Air Terminal in passing on many occasions and am always quietly impressed. It looks sleek and modern, an almost futuristic addition to the Bangkok landscape.
I initially assumed that it must actually be a fully functional airport and was surprised to be told that it merely served as a glorified train terminal.
This week was the first time I actually had cause to use it as a last minute change of plan found me needing to make my way from Pra Ram 9 to Survanabhumi.
I had naively assumed that, as we were standing less than 100 metres from the Makkasan air terminal at the time, this would be the cheapest and easiest way of getting to the airport. While there is no questioning the efficiency of the 29.5 billion Baht line which opened late last year, I was taken aback by the price.
One ticket costs 150 Baht, meaning that it actually costs more for two people to use the rail link to get from Makkasan to Survanabhumi than it would to take a taxi. To put this price into context people are being asked to pay the same for a train in and out of the city centre as they would a minibus to Pattaya.
Perhaps this is the reason why, on a Monday morning in the middle of the high season, Makkasan was deserted. The handful of customers who were there were comfortably outnumbered by the staff. We weren’t in a hurry but we were shepherded towards the high speed link. Access to the low speed link, which is only slightly slower and costs less than a third of the price, can’t have been far away but for some reason it wasn’t being advertized prominently.
The terminal is just as impressive on the inside as it is from the outside. I have been to international airports which are much smaller but I have never seen one quite as empty. There were a grand total of eight people on the train and another three waiting to board for the return journey.
Survanabhumi itself was bustling, there was a queue at the taxi rank and many of the cafes and restaurants were verging on full, yet the much vaunted high speed rail link was being used by a mere handful of people. Perhaps the tourists touching down in Bangkok were unaware of its existence. Or perhaps they had done their maths and worked out that by the time they had paid to get from Makkasan to wherever it was they were staying, on top of the cost of the 150 Baht ticket, it would be cheaper and easier just to join the queue at the taxi rank.
There is at present the capacity to actually check in your bags at Makkasan provided you are flying with Thai International and Bangkok Airways, but I am not exactly sure why anyone would feel a pressing need to part with their luggage prematurely. If you are using the rail link anyway then I suppose it saves you the inconvenience of having to carry your bags to the check out at the opposite end but I can’t imagine this is going to make a radical difference to anyone’s enjoyment of their journey.
The other thing which amazed me about Makkasan was that it only served as a terminal for one train line. You have a choice between travelling a couple of kilometres west to Paya Thai or east to the airport itself. There are BTS and MRT stations which are more useful as transport hubs and yet this brand new building is 50 times as big as any of them.
The Makkasan Air Terminal has all the hallmarks of a vanity project. It looks very impressive from both the inside and the outside and fulfills its function admirably, but there doesn’t appear to be much of an actual demand for it. Perhaps there are certain rush hours at which the terminal is packed but its appeal seems to be limited to people who live in close proximity to it and those who use the airport regularly and are anxious to reduce their journey time.
I have a friend arriving from Kuala Lumpur on Friday. I could advise him to catch a train to Makkasan and then get on the MRT and then pay 10 Baht to a motorcycle taxi driver for the final leg of the journey. Or I could simply tell him to catch a taxi straight to my front door which, even with the airport surcharge, will only be very marginally more expensive. There’s no competition and until the day that traffic in Bangkok actually does grind to a standstill the taxi is going to win every time.
I welcome any measures to reduce the growing congestion on the roads in the country’s capital but judging from what I saw this week the Makkasan Air Terminal is not the answer.
