(FORTUNE Magazine) – With its long list of well-publicized problems since opening last September, Bangkok's new international airport is looking like a $4 billion loser. But the airport's troubles may provide a big win for a former Bangkok Post reporter.

In August 2005, a year before Suvarnabhumi Airport opened, Sermsuk Kasitipradit reported that runways were already cracking. The airport was the showcase infrastructure project and a monument to the ambition of Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who was deposed in a coup nine days before it opened. Thaksin branded the story a lie and had the state-run airport authority, Airports of Thailand, sue the English-language daily for criminal defamation. The Post retracted its report and fired Sermsuk and news editor Chadin Tephaval, insisting they got the story wrong, because when the government gave a tour of the runways, no cracks were found.

Well, the cracks are back--hundreds of them--prompting Thailand's Department of Civil Aviation to withhold Suvarnabhumi's safety certification and forcing the airport authority to reopen Bangkok's old airport for domestic flights while the runways are being repaired. With leaks, cracked floor tiles, a shortage of toilets, lack of signs, broken air conditioning, and strained flight capacity, Suvarnabhumi is looking more like a monument to malfeasance. Tortrakul Yomnak, an airport-authority board member and civil engineer, says the problems could take a few months or a few years to fix and cost as much as $300 million. He also plans to investigate whether corruption played a role in the faulty workmanship.

Post executives say they have received indications that the airport authority may soon drop its defamation suit. But the paper must still contend with Sermsuk, who has taken the daily to court, asking for reinstatement and damages. "The recent revelations confirm that all the reports about corruption and shoddy construction were true,'' Sermsuk says. Whether or not he wins his job back, his reputation is once again flying high.