"Don Mueang" airfield was the second established in Thailand, after Sra Pathum Airfield, which is now Sra Pathum horse racing course, known as the Royal Bangkok Sports Club. The first flights to Don Mueang were made on 8 March 1914 and involved the transfer of aircraft of the Royal Thai Air Force (RTAF). Three years earlier, Thailand had sent three army officers to France to train as pilots. On completion of their training in 1911, the pilots were authorized to purchase seven aircraft, three Breguets and four Nieuports, which formed the basis of the Royal Thai Air Force. Sra Pathum airfield was established in February 1911 with an arrival by Orville Wright, seven years after the invention of the first airplane by the Wright brothers on 17 December 1903. After the war had finished in September 1945, the airfield was occupied by British Royal Air Force during the brief British occupation of Thailand until March 1946 when 211 Squadron, which moved there in October 1945, was disbanded. In May 2005, Thai Airways International introduced nonstop service between Bangkok and New York City using Airbus A340-500s. The night of 27–28 September 2006 was the official end of operations at Don Mueang airport when the newer Suvarnabhumi Airport was intended to be Bangkok's sole airport when it opened in 2006. The last commercial flights to Don Mueang were: International departure: Although scheduled for Kuwait Airways KU414 to Kuwait at 02:50, Qantas flight QF302 to Sydney, originally scheduled for 18:00, was delayed for more than nine hours before finally taking off at 03:12, about ten minutes after the Kuwait flight. Qantas claimed that QF302 was an extra flight. International arrival: Kuwait Airways from Jakarta at 01:30 Domestic departure: Thai Airways TG124 to Chiang Mai at 22:15 (coincidentally, when Thai moved domestic operations back to Don Mueang again on 28 March 2009, their last departure was also a 22:15 flight to Chiang Mai) Domestic arrival: Thai Airways TG216 from Phuket at 23:00 Before the opening of Suvarnabhumi, the airport used the IATA airport code BKK and the name was spelled "Don Muang". After Suvarnabhumi opened for commercial flights, the spelling was changed and as "Don Mueang" it assigned the new IATA airport code DMK, though it still retains the ICAO airport code VTBD. The traditional spelling is still used by many airlines and by most Thais. Commercial carriers deserted Don Mueang at the opening of Suvarnabhumi Airport. But the higher operating costs of the new airport and safety concerns over cracked runways at the new airport caused many to seek a return to Don Mueang. Low-cost airlines led demands for a reopening of the airport. Airports of Thailand released a report at the end of 2006 that furthered this effort. The report proposed reopening DMK as a way to avoid or delay second-stage expansion that had been planned for Suvarnabhumi. On 30 January 2007, the Ministry of Transport recommended temporarily reopening Don Mueang while touch up work proceeded on some taxiways at Suvarnabhumi. Because of the 2011 Thailand floods that affected Bangkok and other parts of Thailand, the airport was closed as flood waters flowed onto the runways and affected the lighting. Don Mueang reopened on 6 March 2012. On 16 March 2012, Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra ordered all low-cost, chartered, and non-connecting flights to relocate to Don Mueang. This ended the single-airport policy. Airports of Thailand was ordered to encourage low-cost carriers to shift to Don Mueang to help ease congestion at Suvarnabhumi Airport. Suvarnabhumi Airport was designed to handle 45 million passengers per year, but it processed 48 million in 2011 and the number was expected to reach 53 million in 2012. Some ten airlines may relocate to Don Mueang. Budget airline Nok Air is already serving flights from and to Don Mueang. Nok Air handles about four million passengers per year.