Re: Bangkok Lock Down - Emergency declared for 60 days - travel advice?
The airport blockade was the work of the yellow shirts (same as the current protesters). They seem to have backed away from that sort of tactic. The protest organisers have made very reassuring sounds to tourists this time. When a fringe group threatened to disrupt Air Traffic Control, the leaders made it clear that that would not be allowed (and it fizzled out).
I was in BKK for the first three days of the current "shutdown", staying at a hotel just near the Asok protest site. The protesters either ignored me or smiled and I did not feel any threat. It was the same when I was there in 2010 during the red shirt protests and I was welcomed and given passage everywhere I went (at one point, a red shirt marshall cleared an intersection to allow my car through when he realised I was a tourist).
Having said that, there is no clear political way out of the current dilemma. As tempers become frayed and more people are killed or injured, violence could start to spread out from the participants to other bystanders. It has happened before: at least one Australian tourist was shot (not fatally) in 2010. Both of BKK's airports are well clear of the current hot spots, so travel in and out of Thailand is probably OK, but as the situation deteriorates, I would avoid Bangkok itself and stick to the regional centres.