Thai airport steps up safety after trolley pile-up

BANGKOK — Airports of Thailand Plc (AoT) says it has adjusted bidding requirements for new trolleys at Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi airport, after a wild pile-up of baggage carts that exposed problems with moving luggage around the country’s top airport.

About 10 passengers and eight trolleys were involved in the accident, which began when one of the carts tipped over and ended in a series of rear-end collisions at the top of one of the airport’s moving stairways.

After a meeting on Monday, the airport’s operations department director said that the accident had revealed several issues and would affect the imminent call for bids by trolley-making firms, and security personnel within the airport itself.

It also revealed that the trolleys have been in use for years, possibly since the airport opened in 2006. The trolleys also contain wrong usage instructions.

The incident was sparked last Sunday by Ms Suphaporn Plengmaneephan, 63, who had returned to Bangkok from a family trip abroad. She and her daughter had loaded their baggage onto two trolleys provided by Suvarnabhumi for use by passengers inside the airport.

As they were ascending from the second to the third floor of the airport on the escalator, Ms Suphaporn’s cart lost traction on the stairs and tipped over, spilling her bags. Her daughter, immediately ahead of her, turned to help, leaving her own trolley locked on the stairway, but it began to roll backwards.

The family, their trolleys and the strewn bags all arrived at the top, triggering a domino-like series of collisions. In quick succession, the six baggage trolleys of another six following passengers hit the initial pile-up.

A security guard and the passengers worked to clear the top of the escalator, but Ms Suphaporn’s family was concerned the guard had not pressed the emergency button to stop the escalator and clear the luggage.

The guard said, and operations director Piti Trikalanon confirmed, that there are emergency buttons at both ends of the long escalators. However, the guard was unable to reach the button on Sunday because it was at the ground level of the escalator mechanism, and the baggage cart pile-up was in the way.

He told the family that similar incidents occur frequently, and passengers have had to handle the problem themselves.

Mr Piti said AoT began sourcing a new set of trolleys in April. The specifications for purchase and maintenance have been amended after the trolley pile-up. Sunday’s accident showed there was a clear need for security officers to be stationed at both ends of every escalator. The staff are supplied by the baggage-cart vendors.

He said last Sunday’s accident had occurred at a rarely-used escalator.

AoT has also expressed full confidence in the Wanzl baggage trolleys used at Suvarnabhumi and “several” other airports around the world. Mr Piti said there were few reported incidents of trolleys tipping over “when the front wheels fail to lock”.

The accident revealed an embarrassing instruction sign that provided wrong details on how to lock the trolleys on the moving stairways. It instructs passengers to press the handle down, when in fact that unlocks the cart.

Mr Piti admitted the signage was wrong. He said the airport would change the signs immediately, with correct instructions.

One trolley user, Ms Waraporn Suthiprapha, wrote that she had experienced the same situation — except that she was five months’ pregnant when the trolley in front of her toppled. She said she was lucky because she retreated back down the moving stairway, and there was no one close behind her.

She wrote that the airport should provide more lifts for people who feel uncomfortable using the stairway.

In a Facebook post, Suvarnabhumi’s public relations team implied that Ms Suphaporn had used the trolley wrongly — by pressing the handle.

The AoT said that when it calls for bids for new trolleys within the next 10 days, a new clause will insist on a load guarantee for the stairways, as well as mandating that security staff be present at both ends of all moving escalators. BANGKOK POST