4 hour queue at Don Mueang Airport last night

[reader]

Air Force officers to help clear airport immigration checkpoints

August 11, 2017 15:41

By The Nation

 

Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha has ordered Royal Thai Air Force officers to help speed up the process at airport immigration checkpoints.

Last weekend, heavy congestion at Don Mueang Airport’s immigration checkpoints prompted an urgent investigation to determine why thousands of visitors were kept waiting for nearly five hours.

 

Prayut said on Friday he had instructed the Immigration Bureau to open all counters for service. 

If they faced a shortage of manpower Prayut ordered Air Force Commander-in-Chief ACM Jom Rungsawang to employ his officers to help.

 

“If all-out efforts from the Immigration Bureau, Airports of Thailand and the Ministry of Transport cannot deal with the congestion we will find another solution,” he said. 

 

Prayut said there were several reasons why the process was very slow, which included the small space at the passenger terminal which has a capacity for 1,000-2,800 people but sometimes there were as many as 4,000 passengers arriving at the same time.

 

He said he was not sure whether the terminal could expand the space.

 

 

 

http://www.nationmultimedia.com/detail/national/30323530

[a447a]

If the powers that be think Thailand's reputation for sex tourism is having an adverse effect on tourism in general, just wait until the picture above gets published around the world.

 

With such horrendous queues, why would anybody bother?

 

Five hours?? You must be joking!

 

In all my years I've never seen anything like it.

[Dalewood]

Hehe, don't demand, but go with the flow!  Get some snacks, water, make sure your phone and tablet are fully charged, go to the toilet before you land/join the queue, warn your hotel/airport pick-up (if any) in advance, and just take it easy!  No point starting your holiday on a sour note!

 

If it is 4+ hours, I know I am going have to go to the bathroom. I assume there were toilets available, but no one wanted to get out of line?

[Guest]

I've never queued for even an hour anywhere, so 4~5 hours is just appalling.

 

I hope the authorities get their act together real quick.   I don't really see the point in booking really expensive fast track in normal circumstances, but if faced with this, how do we pay up when it looks bad upon arrival ?

[paulsf]

There are a couple of arrival services at Suvarnabhui Airport. For around 1500 you can get met at the gate with a golf cart driven directly to fast track lane, and to baggage claim in about 10 minutes or so. Without cart, about half that price, Great service if you don't like lines or are in a hurry. They can arrange car service also if your interested.

[rollingstone]

You could perhaps check with your carrier (guess Low Cost carriers do not count). One friend of mine regularly uses the services of my 'home' carrier to get a wheel chair (plus service staff) and I believe it is free (or the airlines pays for it? not sure)

 

Why I think it is free? As the friend is very stingy so he could not possibly pay for such service. I just hope he could at least spare some small tips to the service staff, but no guarantee of that LOL.

[paulsf]

Wheelchairs are free. You are taken thru fast track. Hopefully you tip the person pushing the chair decently. Don't be totally cheap.

[PeterRS]

One reason for part of the chaos is that the snake lines at BKK do not extend back far enough. It took them years to finally introduce them. No doubt it will take more years to extend them.

 

If the space for passengers waiting in line is too small and they cannot extend it, the obvious answer is to find some way to increase the flow. More immigration officers will help - but for how long will they be there? Just until the bad publicity dies down, Ill bet. Thais already have their own lanes with a requirement for very few officers. Moving them over to the arrivals from other countries is a drop in the bucket.

 

The new Immigration form will only make things worse. But giving arrivals from Hong Kong and Singapore automatic gate entrance definitely will up to a point. Earlier someone posted this will start in October. Bet it wont. Large numbers of Hong Kong residents and permanent residents dont have Hong Kong passports. There are at least four types of passport - Hong Kong SAR passport, UK passport, Chinese passport and British National Overseas passport. How will they differentiate between a Chinese living in Hong Kong but holding a UK passport (and there are many) from a Brit living in Britain with a UK passport? his will only work if they also check HK ID cards. If they restrict the automatic lanes only to the HKSAR passports, there will be howls from the other many hundreds of thousands of other HK travellers!

[Guest]

Managing queues is pretty damn simple.

1 Calculate passenger arrivals.  They can either do it based on historical data plus some growth, or collect information on incoming planes x number of passengers on board.   

So the number of passengers per minute should be a known.

 

2  Calculate how long it takes to process passengers through each stand.    Maybe 2.5 minutes per passenger or whatever.

 

Do a simple division to work out how many immigration stands they need.   Install them.    

 

Employ a few barkers to direct dopey passengers to the empty desks.

 

 

Then there is the slightly longer term element of extrapolating passenger growth and figuring out what capacity is required in 2018, 2019 etc.

 

As for our countermeasures, well if we arrive at DMK and find excessive queues, is it possible to pay up at some stand for fast track once we are in the terminal ?

[vinapu]

 

 If they restrict the automatic lanes only to the HKSAR passports, there will be howls from the other many hundreds of thousands of other HK travellers!

I doubt as long as it will be clearly marked "Hong Kong passport holders only".

After all such ideas are employer world all over with  separate lines for domestic passport  holders ,some specials ie. EU or ASEAN passports only and all others.

And as Z909 suggested , hire some barkers making sure hordes are standing in proper line .

 

I guess going through fire in zoo on arrival is part and parcel of modern air travel, price we are paying for affordability of tickets but surely some airports are coping better than others.

 

Behavior of passengers counts for streamlining as well, once I was witness of boarding two planes , both the same 767's to two European destinations. It started at the same time and one going to say , destination better known for order  was done good 10 minutes then the other   going to more relaxed place.

[spoon]

I didnt notice any asean lane in dmk or bkk, is there any lane for asean? i see one in vietnam ho chi minh airport though,

[vinapu]

I didnt notice any asean lane in dmk or bkk, is there any lane for asean? i see one in vietnam ho chi minh airport though,

Definitely was one at Swampy when I was there in Dec and reason I remember is that even if I'm not ASEAN passport holder I was directed to go there by the barker because nobody was waiting in line there.

[bobsaigon]

Another approach would be to have Thai Immigration officers stationed at some airports in China so that immigration processing could be done even before the tourists board their Thailand bound flights.    On arrival in Thailand, they would be dealt with at "Pre-screened" channels.

 

But is there really any way to efficiently and quickly handle several thousand people who arrive simultaneously?   If the airports lack sufficient space and if the travelers are unsophisticated first time tourists who don't speak English and are unfamiliar with the concept of queues, the prospect is not encouraging. 

[Alexx]

Thailand could introduce an ETA (Electronic Travel Authorization) for those short-term visitors who don't require a visa (or currently apply for a visa on arrival) and even get the questionnaire that is currently a part of the arrival card done online before these travelers depart, when the ETA enrollment takes place.

 

That combined with APIS and automated gates, you could get rid of most stamp monkeys and retrain these clowns to do something useful for the country.

[ChristianPFC]

There is no excuse for such long queues. The minute the airplane takes off, Thai immigration knows it will arrive x hours later and there are y passengers on board and can prepare for them.

 

On a positive note, this afternoon it took me 6 minutes to go through immigration arriving in DMK.

[vinapu]

There is no excuse for such long queues. The minute the airplane takes off, Thai immigration knows it will arrive x hours later and there are y passengers on board and can prepare for them.

 

On a positive note, this afternoon it took me 6 minutes to go through immigration arriving in DMK.

so it seems everything boils down to timming of arrival

[Guest]

There is no excuse for such long queues. The minute the airplane takes off, Thai immigration knows it will arrive x hours later and there are y passengers on board and can prepare for them.

 

On a positive note, this afternoon it took me 6 minutes to go through immigration arriving in DMK.

 

Agree entirely.  AND they can extrapolate past growth to have a pretty good stab at next years figures as well.    

Training a stamp monkey should be easy enough.

 

As for the 6 minutes v 4 hours, if Thai immigration cannot multiply XxY, then is there a particular time of day or day of the week when the queues are worst ?

[ozmouse]

Ozmouse can you please give more info about this service.  How to contact?

 

 

Thanks

 

For DMK i used   https://www.limousine.in.th/fast-track-immigration.html

 

for BKK is use https://www.bangkokflightservices.com/home/bfs-services/premium-airport-services/

[reader]

Excerpts from Khaosod English

 

BANGKOK — Passing through airport immigration is a little swifter today for some, so long as they hail from the sparkling city-state to the south. Singaporeans are the first foreign nationals to be approved to use new automated passport control gates at Suvarnabhumi International Airport as of Saturday.

 

“This will help solve the problem of crowded queues in airports,” Lt. Gen. Nattatorn Phrosoontorn of Immigration Bureau police said. “We’re using technology to tackle this problem in a concrete way.”

 

At the gates, a photo is taken of each passenger, their passport information collected and their fingerprints scanned. Although the service is limited to Suvarnabhumi for now, it will eventually be rolled out to all of Thailand’s international airports, Nattatorn said.

 

The Immigration Bureau and Ministry of Foreign Affairs are working on approving other nationalities for use of the automatic gates, but no specifics have been made public yet.

 

What is made clear is that “high-quality” tourists, meaning those likely to spend the most, will have priority.

 

“Countries will be considered on a case-by-case basis. We will focus on countries that have high-quality tourists who visit Thailand in large numbers each year, but keeping security as the main priority,” Nattatorn said.

 

http://www.khaosodenglish.com/news/bangkok/2017/08/21/auto-passport-control-gates-open-suvarnabhumi/

[spoon]

They are going by quantity first then quality it seems. Singapore and hong kong are both small countries that have good overal citizen wealth.

[Dalewood]

.... otherwise you will do it , right?

[Dalewood]

My threat must have worked---I was in the priority line but even at that had NO wait

[ay709394]

My threat must have worked---I was in the priority line but even at that had NO wait

Did u pay for extra to get into the priority line?

[Dalewood]

I was in business class Taipei-Bangkok so it came gratis