We had just left Bangkok with Thai Airways heading to Surrat Thani, when Bangkok’s international airport has been taken off operation by some protesters. Since there was more than one week ahead before we needed to return there, Marie and me initially had no big concerns due to these events.
In safe distance, in southern Thailand, we followed progress on TV and the Internet. But, when after a whole week, there was no end in sight, we started to think about alternate ways to get back home again.We had followed airlines instructions closely on their websites; mainly we visited www.emirates.de and www.airasia.com to get their latest messages which were not always straight and to the point.
Our original flight schedule was this:
- Sat, 6th December 2008: 15.45h – 17.05h: Krabi (KBV) – Bangkok (BKK) w/ AirAsia
- Sat, 6th December 2008: 20.25h – 23.55h: Bangkok (BKK) – Dubai (DXB) w/ Emirates EK373
- Sat, 7th December 2008: 08.40h – 12.45h: Dubai (DXB) – Frankfurt (FRA) w/ Emirates EK049
On December 2nd, the Thai main court sentenced the ruling party to dissolve, practically ending the airport’s occupation. The protesters went home, but then, the airport needed to be cleaned and searched before being declared safe again. Through this ongoing process, first AirAsia declared on their webite to move their flights back to Suvarnabhumi Airport, while Emirates still stated to have some replacement flights to Utapao, a military airport near Bangkok.
At first glance, that was good news, but given our fligh schedule, we didn’t have time to get from one airport to the other. Luckily, after one more day of waiting (we were not really waiting as the main part of our doing, but hanging around at beaches, so no problem so far), Emirates also declared Suvarnabhumi Airport as safe again and stated to operate to and from there again:
As Bangkok