Let me be clear, Bangkok has perhaps the most beautiful airport terminal building I have ever seen anywhere. We arrived there at perhaps 5 a.m. when it was dark, uncrowded, and lit up. My impression was that this building was so modern and sleek looking you could use it "as is" for the set of a serious science fiction movie about a non-apocalyptic future.
As you can see, all that modernity doesn't make the airport a wonderful place to spend days waiting for a plane to take you away from a semi-civil war. A nice room at an airport hotel would make that wait bearable, but I'll wager these were quickly sold out at high prices.
The unfortunate people in the article are caught between the Icelandic volcano ash cloud which is making flying into Europe difficult and the "red shirt" rebellion in Thailand which makes flying out of the country highly desirable. Add to those difficulties the fact that many of these tourists are traveling on a tight budget and their dilemma becomes dire.
Any "right now" airline seat vacancies are going to people who take aside Thai Air officials and make them a present of a couple hundred Euros, or more. Of course, people with money could take the train to Kuala Lumpur or Singapore and either fly out of there or stay there until airports in Europe open up. Traveling on a shoestring budget is only romantic when you look back upon it twenty years later.
