The public apology came through a notice issued by AoT Phuket, shared by the Phuket Info Center earlier today (Nov 8).
The notice, marked “Phuket Airport Clarifying the issue of rainwater leaking from the PorDorSor [passenger] building”, was also dated today.
The notice admitted that photos of water leaking from the roof into the ‘Buffer Zone’ area, in front of the Arrivals Hall on the ground floor of the Domestic Passenger Building yesterday had been published on social media.
“Phuket Airport would like to clarify that from the preliminary inspection [we] know that the reason is that during this time there was heavy rain and strong winds. This caused a large amount of rainwater to flow into the 2nd floor of the Domestic Passenger Building.
“The drainage channels were unable to drain the water in time, resulting in water overflowing down to the Buffer Zone area, Arrivals Hall, 1st floor, Domestic Passenger Building, causing accidents where passengers slip and fall in the said area,” the notice said.
“As soon as the ทภก [TorPorGor, the initials for ‘Phuket International Airport’] was informed, the Phuket International Airport medical section went to provide first aid to victims of the accident and is ready to repair the damage that has occurred, along with blocking off the area and installing signs to warn passengers that ‘The floor is wet, be careful of being slippery’ in the said area immediately,” the notice continued.
“Phuket International Airport has hastened to survey the defects in order to improve the drainage system as well as instructing employees and officials to closely monitor and facilitate passengers so that such an incident does not occur again.
“Phuket International Airport apologises on this occasion,” the notice concluded.
Last month, AoT Phuket had to apologise for the air conditioning system at the international terminal failing.
The apology, which came only when the problem was finally fixed, was publicly recognised only after Phuket MP Thitikan Thitipruethikul, Member of Parliament for Phuket District 3 (all of Thalang District plus Tambon Kathu), posted online that he had informed the Ministry of Transport of the airport’s failure to fix the problem.
The issues affecting the airport comes as AoT Phuket looks to spend B6 billion to increase the capacity of the airport to accommodate increased air traffic volume from 20 flights per hour to 25 flights per hour, and to accommodate no less than 18 million passengers per year.