Tarmac Troubles

The runways at the country’s newly-opened showcase airport may be cracked. Depends who you ask. I went to a discussion at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club (motto: “You don’t have to be foreign and you don’t have to be a correspondent”) to listen to some local authorities.

I knew I wouldn’t hear “the truth.” Already the country has lost face. The blame and spin phase still has a long way to go before it peaks. But I was interested in the Thai way of dealing with the press.

Somebody asked how far back the alleged problems could be traced. (Planning for this project began forty years ago.) Referring to the possibility that corruption had led to corner cutting when the runway’s foundation layers were laid, the answer was, “I don’t have to tell you which administration was in power then. Everybody knows that.”

That kind of indirect response struck me as different from the American style of throwing mud. But when a German questioner wondered why not bring in international experts to fix whatever is wrong, the same speaker leveled his gaze, changed his tone, and made it crystal clear that he thought the credentials of Thai engineers were second to none.

What will happen next? To minimize the chance that faults at the new airport will cause an accident, most likely the former one will reopen. Some flights will land there while parts of the new airstrip are repaired. Unfortunately, it’s too late to mend the damage done to the national pride.