Airport immigration queues growing

[Admin]

Airport immigration queues growing  
Bangkok Post: 14 Feb 2011
First impressions suffer as airport immigration queues grow longer

The tourism industry is facing a headache during this high season, with travellers having to queue up for extended periods at Suvarnabhumi Airport's immigration section.

"I had to wait at the airport immigration counter for 70 minutes," Joseph Greiner wrote to my mail box on January 24. He continued that most flights were delayed because of the "professionals" in charge of immigration. Only half of the counters were manned.

Mr Greiner is not alone. Many complaints have been filed to travel associations via travel agents and also heard by the Immigration Bureau Commissioner, Pol Lt Gen Chatchawal Suksomjitwhich, who promised an improvement of the service.

"But nothing has changed since," said Tourism and Sports Minister, Chumpol Silpa-archa, who confirmed that the issue was also discussed at a recent cabinet meeting.

The Immigration Bureau explained that they did not have enough staff and have a problem with equipment as their computers are old, slow at processing and sometimes malfunction.

At Suvarnabhumi Airport, there are 70 immigration counters, but only 40 are open during office working hours. At night, the numbers are dramatically reduced.

"I left for China on February 4 at 3am. There were only two immigration counters available so the queue was long," said Anake Srishevachart, president of the Thai-Japan Tourist Association. His solution was to be at the airport at least three hours before his chartered flight was due to take off.

The long queueing period at the immigration section not only affects departure passengers, but also arrivals.

The inbound and outbound traffic at Suvarnabhumi has doubled from an average 50,000 travellers a day to some 100,000 during the high season, said Piyaman Tejapaibul, president of the Tourism Council of Thailand.

"The problem that can be fixed right away is to allocate enough officers to match the numbers of tourists," she said. "This is a question of good management. We want the Immigration Bureau to emphasise service."

To make their complaints formal, the association will submit their letter today to the Joint Public and Private Sector Consultative Committee, which is presided over by the Prime Minister.

As first impressions have a lasting impact Thailand can not stand to leave unpleasant feeling in any tourists' minds.

"This is an urgent issue that needs to be addressed," said the Tourism and Sports Minister.

http://www.bangkokpost.com/travel/news/221441/first-impressions-suffer-as-airport-immigration-queues-grow-longer

[EastFife4Forfar5]

And do we have a response from the management at Suvarnabhumi ??

[F1ART]

I spent more than 70mins last Friday queuing with my 3 young kids, not good  

[Prakhonchai Nick]

Not much point getting to the airport hours early, since first you have to check in with the airline, before queuing up at immigration. And most check-ins only open 2 hours before the flight!

[Vombatus]

Most 'normal' international flights open 3 hours before.

I normally budget 45 minutes, in or out, and looks like I may have to revise that in the light of F1ART's post.

[Admin]

Suvarnabhumi to unclog Immigration 
Bangkok Post: 25 Feb 2011

AoT springing for overtime
Firm to pay B12m to unclog Immigration

Airports of Thailand Plc (AoT) has earmarked 12 million baht to deal with critically long immigration queues at Suvarnabhumi airport over the next three months.

Long immigration queues at Suvarnabhumi greet passengers, even though a sticker (left) in the terminal promises a 24-minute processing.

The money will be used to pay overtime for immigration officers to ensure that all of the counters are manned from March to May and thus able to cope with an expected further surge in passenger traffic.

An official source said the allocation is a temporary solution that AoT is adopting to deal with the top complaint by passengers passing through the country's gateway.

Since late last year, arriving international passengers have had to queue for as long as one hour and outbound passengers for more than half an hour as their numbers spiked.

Suvarnabhumi now handles up to 180,000 incoming and outgoing passengers a day, compared with only 120,000 previously. Immigration officials, citing limited manpower, budgetary restrictions on overtime work and an outdated computer system, have been unable to speed up processing.


AoT hopes the additional funding will enable the Immigration Bureau to man all 72 outbound and 124 arrival counters.So far, the Immigration Bureau has not commented on how processing could be accelerated and queue times reduced. AoT is stepping in as it has taken all the heat from passengers who are unaware the bureau is a separate government agency over which the company has no control.

The source said the company decided to act as it foresees the problem worsening, especially during the peak Songkran holiday in April, when local airports seem to burst at the seams.

The long immigration queues were a topic at Monday's meeting of the committee tasked with investigating Suvarnabhumi's problems, chaired by Deputy Prime Minister Suthep Thaugsuban.It assigned transport permanent secretary Supoj Saplom to head a group to come up with comprehensive solutions within the next two weeks.

One option is employing retired immigration officers to pre-check passengers' documents before reaching the immigration counters.

Another is for the bureau to use outsourced personnel to help perform the duties, but this has been rejected by the bureau due to bureaucratic constraints.

http://www.bangkokpost.com/business/aviation/223414/aot-springing-for-overtime

[Prakhonchai Nick]

Surely March to May is low season. It is NOW and in high season that more Immigration Officers are needed. Having just been to and returned from Cambodia, there were no excessive delays, but arrival took around 20 minutes. The longest queues seemed to be processed more quickly than the shorter ones!