Airports of Thailand Plc (AoT) says it has adjusted bidding requirements for new trolleys for Suvarnabhumi, after a wild pileup of baggage carts that showed problems with moving luggage around inside the country's top airport.
About 10 passengers and eight trolleys were involved in the accident that 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 of the airport's operations department, its director said 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 a sign that has been in use for years, possibly since the airport opened in 2006, which had completely wrong instructions for passengers on how to use the baggage carts.
The incident was sparked on Sunday by Suphaporn Plengmaneephan, 63, who had returned to Bangkok from a family trip abroad. She and her daughter had loaded baggage onto two of the trolleys provided by Suvarnabhumi airport 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 spilt bags all arrived at the top, beginning a domino-like series of collisions.
In quick order, the six baggage trolleys of another six, following passengers, hit the original accident, in a domino pileup.
A security guard and the passengers worked to clear the top of the stairway. But Ms Suphaporn's family was concerned the guard had not simply pressed the emergency button to stop the stairway and clear the spilt luggage.
The guard said, and operations director Piti Trikalnon confirmed, that there are emergency buttons at both ends of the long stairways. He could not reach it on Sunday because the button is at ground level, on the stairway mechanism - and he couldn't reach it because of the baggage cart pileup.
He told the family similar incidents occur frequently, and passengers have had to deal with the problem themselves. (continues below)
The emergency button to stop the stairway is at ground level at both ends of the stairs, but there was just one security guard who could not reach it because of the pileup.
Pol Lt Col Piti said conditions for buying and maintaining a new set of trolleys, already begun by Airports of Thailand, have been amended as a result of the trolley pileup. Sunday's accident showed there was clear need for security officers to be stationed at both ends of every stairway. The staff are supplied by the baggage-cart vendors.
He said Sunday's accident occurred at a relatively little-used escalator, compared with the heavy traffic between the first-to-second floor. AoT currently does not require any security guard at this spot, but will change that.
AoT 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, which provides wrong details on how to lock the trolleys on the moving stairways. It shows and tells passengers to press the handle down, when in fact that will unlock the cart.
Pol Lt Col Piti admitted the signage was wrong. He said the airport would change the signs immediately, with correct instructions. (continues below)
The signage shown for years suggests that users press the trolley handle while using the moving stairway - the wrong action.
A Facebook post by Ms Suphaporn's daughter got immediate replies from previous travellers saying they had experienced similar problems on the moving stairway.
One user 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 stairway, and there was no one close behind her.
She wrote that the airport should provide more lifts, sufficient to meet demand by customers who felt uncomfortable using the stairway.
Suvarnabhumi's public relations team answered the Facebook post with comments that implied Ms Suphaporn had used the trolley wrongly - by pressing the handle.
The PR team claimed as well that Ms Suphaporn's daughter "obviously" had overweight baggage. In fact she had two bags totalling just 25kg of the 40kg allowed by her airline, as well as a backpack gift from the airline.
The airport later stated the trolleys are guaranteed to operate properly with up to 200kg of baggage on flat ground, but there is no such guarantee on the sloped, moving stairway.
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 security staff at both ends of all moving stairs.
The airport passed the report of Sunday's pileup to the Suvarnabhumi technical division, with a request to re-install emergency buttons in places that are easier to find, including by passengers.
The airport said later that there are currently five emergency buttons on its long moving stairways, two at both ends and three in the middle.