Victory over potty delays

[readerc54]

From Bangkok Post

Immigration officials on duty at Suvarnabhumi airport during morning peak hours have been ordered not to leave their stations to keep the lines of departing passengers flowing. The stringent directive was issued by Immigration Bureau chief Pol Lt Gen Nathathorn Prousoontorn on Monday after complaints about a long wait from air travelers to have their passports stamped in the morning.

The big boss at the bureau said up to 14 officers, or about 80% of the workforce at the airport, had already been deployed in the morning but passengers claimed they saw an empty counter as some officials might have gone to the toilet during the long working hours.

http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/general ... -sit-tight

[fountainhall]

What about the peak early afternoon hours, I wonder? Two years ago I went to meet my niece who arrived around 1:00 pm. Thankfully she had her cellphone and was able to call to tell me the Immigration queues were massive. It took her 1:40 minutes to get through. To be fair, several A380s all used to arrive around that time. Now at least one has been replaced by a 777. But that reduces numbers by around 150 at most.

A reminder to those aged 70 or over. You are entitled as a result of your age to use the Premium Immigration lines on both exit and entry.

[thewayhelooks]

"A reminder to those aged 70 or over. You are entitled as a result of your age to use the Premium Immigration lines on both exit and entry."

Oh God, another five years to go.

[fountainhall]

Oh God, another five years to go.

Just pray they have not raised the age to 75 by then

[thaiworthy]

Last time I went through Suvarnabhumi, I hobbled a bit from a medical problem. If you grab a railing on the jetway as you walk, people run from all over with a wheelchair, which I refused. I am not ready for a wheelchair. However, if you anticipate a long line in the queues, you can fake it and zip through Premium Immigration this way. They offered me a special ticket to present, which I put in the trash. I thought it was advertising.

Perhaps you just have to look and act over 70.

[pong]

@FH: its now for DEPARTING pax-also the space for those is much smaller. And there is more at stake: a departing plane, certainly now with the closed part runway, so airplane slots are at a premium. Wait till you get 70+-then you can use the premium lanes for free.
I always wonder the complaints about long waits for arival: the times it went smoothly for me, I simply had to wait the same time as otherwise for the luggage to come on the belt. Whats the difference about there to wait?

[Jun]

An obvious step would be to fix the queues.

1 Charge enough in landing fees to pay sufficient staff then hire them
2 Simplify the arrivals process. Upon a recent arrival in Malaysia, there were no useless landing cards, they managed to fingerprint me & complete the process in about little more than 50% of the time taken in Thailand.
3 Extend the scope of e-gates. Even if a manual stamp is required, it should not be difficult to feed all the people entitled to 30 days through e-gates & have one person stamping the passports afterwards.

Having said that, this week I arrived back in one of the London airports and out of about 30 e-gates, 6 were operating. Don't the public sector realise the whole idea of machines is they are supposed to operate ALL the time and reliably ? As automation does in factories & so on.

[readerc54]

If immigration queues aren't enough to exasperate us, one airline yesterday implemented a "simplified" boarding procedure featuring NINE different zones.
http://www.yahoo.com/news/us-airline-un ... 35375.html

[readerc54]

The Civil Aviation Authority of Thailand will undertake a "simplified" process of determining air fares with the goal of eliminating confusion.

Excerpt from Bangkok Post article
CAAT director Chula Sukmanop said if the single 13 baht/km ceiling is replaced by more than one rate, such as one for flights without basic in-flight services and another for full-service flights, ticket prices for low-cost airlines could be brought even lower than 13 baht/km.

http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/general ... -structure

[fountainhall]

@FH: its now for DEPARTING pax-also

Did I not make that clear?

A reminder to those aged 70 or over. You are entitled as a result of your age to use the Premium Immigration lines on both exit and entry.

But it is not always a breeze on departure. Since it is also used by air crew, using it as a biz class passenger I have sometimes had to spend 25 minutes getting through the Premium Lane when they have just 2 of the 8 or 10 desks manned. Certainly better than twice that long in the economy pax lines, though.

I always wonder the complaints about long waits for arival: the times it went smoothly for me, I simply had to wait the same time as otherwise for the luggage to come on the belt. Whats the difference about there to wait?

You have been lucky. There are hundreds of thousands who are stuck in hugely long queues. The 1 hr. 40 mins it took my niece was not exaggerated. Much clearly depends on your time of arrival/departure.