Flooding Leaves Huge Baggage Backlog at Bangkok's Suvarnabhumi Airport
Heavy rain and flooding in Bangkok have left hundreds of bags stranded at Suvarnabhumi airport, prompting the Thai Air Force to deploy ground staff to clear the backlog.
Bangkok's main international airport was still grappling with a large backlog of undelivered luggage on Tuesday, as heavy rain and flooding across the Thai capital left hundreds of bags and suitcases occupying a substantial portion of the arrivals hall at Suvarnabhumi.
Airport workers had sorted the stranded luggage by date of arrival and flight number, with some bags labelled as having arrived the previous week and still waiting to be claimed. Passengers were seen queueing at the airport to collect their belongings.
The pile-up stems largely from staff being unable to reach the airport because of flooding that has submerged parts of Bangkok since last week. The airport had earlier attributed the accumulation to insufficient staffing for ground handling operations as well as problems with some baggage carts.
To ease the situation, the Thai Air Force announced it was deploying 69 ground personnel to Suvarnabhumi to help clear the backlog. The disruptions delayed some departures and forced arriving passengers to wait longer than usual for their luggage, with baggage from several flights still undelivered.
The scene is an unusual one for an airport that handles hundreds of flights a day to destinations across multiple continents, and it reflects the wider disruption caused by days of continuous rain and subsequent flooding in the city.