Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra assured that the new airport would be up and running (full scale and efficiently too) by the end of this month. Most Thais who know the situation never believed him.
Now that he has been overthrown in the recent coup d'etat, would anybody care to speculate whether the new airport will open up on the planned date? I hear that the airport is a disaster. They counted some 500 leaks from through the airport terminal roof, and of course the ground transportation system looks to be pretty questionable for what is supposed to become Asia's prime airport.