Originally Posted by Soju
I think there's a "shortage" of toilets/urinals at most airport arrival areas, not just Suvarnabhumi. I think practically every airport I've been to and visited the restroom just after arriving, there's been a queue unless I was one of the first off the plane. No big deal for me because if I have to go that bad I'll use the toilet on the plane and if not I can wait a couple minutes until the initial crowd clears out. The queues always seem to dissipate within 5 minutes or less. Never yet been on a flight that was too short to be able to use the toilet, so don't understand why that would be a problem unless you have some special needs. I once used the restroom on arrival at Don Muang and don't recall exactly, but certainly no more than 3 or 4 urinals and 3 or 4 stalls and a small queue. Don't really see the problem there myself, certainly not when compared to Don Muang and other airports. I'd agree though that there are certain places in the airport where restrooms are too far apart and signage not good enough to find them easily.
My base airport is Narita and there at almost every gate outbound AND inbound you have ample toilet facilities. This in addition to toilets in the baggage claim areas, immigration area and public areas both arrivals and departures.
This is of course in line with the free public facilities available all over the cities in Japan.
I suppose the new BKK airport is the mirror of what's available and standard in the city and the country.
Even in Don Muang on the arrival level there were at least 2 or 3 toilet areas before geting to the baggage claim where there was another big facility.
It was spearate from the departure area. In new BKK apart from the baggage claim area and the holding gates all other very scarse facilities are shared for departure and arrivals