Protesters pack up at Bangkok airports, airlines ready

By Nopporn Wong-Anan

BANGKOK, Dec 3 (Reuters) - Thousands of anti-government protesters prepared to end a blockade of Bangkok's two airports on Wednesday and airlines readied to resume services, as Thailand weighed the appointment of its third prime minister in three months.

Thai Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat was banned from politics for five years and his party disbanded on Tuesday, spurring jubilant anti-government protesters to end their blockades of the capital's airports.

Serirat Prasutanond, acting head of Airports of Thailand, said Bangkok's international airport could resume "partial service" by midnight Thursday after anti-government protesters end their blockade on Wednesday morning.

He said it could take "a few more days" to clean up the international terminal, reboot computer systems and make other checks. But it was too early to say when full service would start, he said.

Government party members have said they would switch to a new "shell" party, already set up, and vote for a new prime minister on Dec. 8, setting the stage for another flashpoint in Thailand's three-year political crisis. [ID:nBKK390970]

Chavarat Charnvirakul, a construction mogul and first deputy prime minister, was named interim leader, an official said.

The Constitutional Court also disbanded two other parties in Somchai's six-party coalition for vote fraud in the 2007 general election and barred their leaders from politics for five years.

Anti-government protesters cheered Somchai's fall after only two months in power, brought down by a Constitutional Court ruling that disbanded the ruling party for vote fraud.

Protest leaders said they would halt all rallies, including crippling occupations of Bangkok's airports which stranded foreign tourists and strangled air-cargo movements.

People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD) leader Sondhi Limthongkul said protesters would pull out of Suvarnabhumi and Don Muang airports at 10 a.m. (0300 GMT) on Wednesday, but the protest halt was conditional.

TOURISTS PREPARE TO LEAVE

Some 250,000 foreign tourists have been stranded by the sit-ins at Suvarnabhumi, a major Asian hub, and the domestic Don Muang terminal.

Serirat said on Wednesday passengers would check in at a temporary facility in Bangkok and then be taken by bus to the airport on the outskirts of the capital.

"The partial service can start at midnight on December 4 at the latest," he told Reuters. He did not say how many flights were planned.

He said the airport's secure areas were clean after a preliminary sweep by police bomb squads.

There also appeared to be little damage to the departure hall and other public areas of the sprawling $4 billion terminal, occupied by the protesters since Nov. 25.

Asked when full service from the 125,000-passenger a day airport would begin, he said: "I can't tell you right away. It will take a few days to check systems."

The first cargo flight in a week left Suvarnabhumi on Tuesday, a welcome sight for a tourist- and export-dependent economy already suffering from the global financial crisis. [ID:nBKK179609]

Finance Minister Suchart Thada-Thamrongvech told Reuters on Monday the economy might be flat next year, or grow by just 1-2 percent, after earlier growth forecasts of between 4-5 percent.

The travel chaos worried neighbours who were to attend a regional summit in Thailand in two weeks, prompting the government to postpone it until March 2009, a spokesman said.

---------------------------------------

For more on Thailand's political crisis

please double click on [nSP258694]

-------------------------------------- (Writing by Jeremy Laurence; Editing by Jerry Norton)