45min wait at immigration is back

[josephbloggs]

I came in from Shanghai Friday evening and walked straight up to an immigration desk with no queue at all.  Luggage through fairly quickly and off we go.

 

The week before I came in from Singapore and only had two people in front of me at immigration.  

 

I travel through the airport a lot and the long queue is the exception rather than the rule - it's usually pretty good.  Leaving BKK tends to be slower, but even then it moves quickly enough.

[stament]

Is there a particular time of the day that its likely queues will be longer due to more passengers arriving? I know you should staff according to demand, but I am just womdering what are the busiest and quietest times of the day in terms of flight arrivals, in case the get their rotas wrong for IOs required. TIT after all ?

[bdenner]

16:30 Hrs on the 31st Oct I arrived at the foot of the ramp into Immigration to where the queue and chaos started, of the 12 or so (24 Stations) "Foreign Passport Holders" only 9 were manned in fact as I was getting closer one guy closed his leaving 8. By the time I got to the luggage carousel a large pile had been removed and stacked off to one side. Near on 1 hour 50 minutes to get to the dreaded Taxi queue where I waited another 35 Minutes.

 

What a farce and effin disgrace.

[mstevens]

I flew in to Suvaranbhumi last night at 9:00 PM.  There was basically no queue at Immigration and just one or two people at each of the booths waiting to be processed so a 1 or 2 minute wait.  I was through quickly and my baggage was at the carousel when I got there so I was in a taxi within 30 minutes of the flight touching down.  Be great if it was like this all the time!

[badischer Barde]

On 7.10.2017 at 1:15 PM, DipStick said:

Over the eight years living in China, I have noticed that the Chinese Immigration to be very efficient. In places such as LoWu, Shekou Ferry, Guangzhou and Beijing Irports, they have "Foreigner Only lanes" and usually a breeze 

you've got to be f*#ing kidding me. Going from BKK to Beijing via Guangzhou I spend about 1 hour in the foreigner lane. About half of that time until the chinese line was empty and then repurposed for laowai. The idea behind "Foreigners Only" is to process the own citizens faster. Kind of fair, because the wait for non-EU-citizens at EU-airports is almost equally bad.

No, If I ever had a quick run through chinese immigration it sure wasn't anywhere close to Beijing or Shenzhen. Shanghai and Zhejiang are pretty ok most of the time though.

[Belzybob]

I shan't be worrying about immigration queues for the next couple of months. The usual +-$7-800 fare I pay from Perth is up $1900 for the two months. For another $500 I could go to the UK and back!

[tso310]

Came through on Wednesday morning from Hanoi. Big queues, I believe caused by quite a few delayed flights arriving at the same time from northern Europe. Still only took 30 min to get through and made wife had to collect our baggage while waiting for me so overall I'm not complaining. Chatted to a Norweigan guy who had spent 18 hours at Schipol. Very uncomplimentary about the treatment everyone was getting there. 

[josephbloggs]

Came in from Singapore yesterday at 2.30pm and it was the busiest I have seen it for a long time.  The queue went all the way through the snakey thing, but it only took 15 minutes as most of the desks were manned.

 

However a couple of girls in front of me took a picture and an immigration guy who was hanging around watching the queue came over and made them delete it.  He then wandered along the queue telling people not to take photos.

 

[Bredbury Blue]

Arrived last Wednesday around 10pm and each immigration desk had a maximum 2 people queuing.

[Yahooka]

Will be landing on Suvarnabhumi on New Years eve at 12.35  early afternoon with Emirates.Does anyone knows how the ques are on that time off day ?

[gk10002000]

On 10/4/2017 at 6:02 AM, Steve Mepham said:

you can book VIP for about 1200 baht get met off the plane and walked straight through, but then you will wait for your bags 

I only have a carry on, so  I would not have to wait for baggage and would love to and would gladly pay for 1200 baht for this VIP.  How do I do that in advance?   What site do I go to to buy this VIP thing?

[mtls2005]

17 hours ago, Yahooka said:

Will be landing on Suvarnabhumi on New Years eve at 12.35  early afternoon with Emirates.Does anyone knows how the ques are on that time off day ?

 

Hard to predict. Suspect many people fly in on Friday or Saturday? 

 

The Visa on Arrival line has been forecast by the authorities to be lengthy.

 

The "regular" and FastTrack lines might be OK?

 

 

12 hours ago, gk10002000 said:

I only have a carry on, so  I would not have to wait for baggage and would love to and would gladly pay for 1200 baht for this VIP.  How do I do that in advance?   What site do I go to to buy this VIP thing?

 

https://www.limousine.in.th/fast-track-immigration.html

 

[stament]

On 01/11/2017 at 7:42 AM, stament said:

Is there a particular time of the day that its likely queues will be longer due to more passengers arriving? I know you should staff according to demand, but I am just womdering what are the busiest and quietest times of the day in terms of flight arrivals, in case the get their rotas wrong for IOs required. TIT after all ?

Any ideas? 0700ish on a Friday has been very busy in the past for me on arrival.

 

Last time Sunday departure 6pm immigration was very bad people being stopped at the top of the escalator and queuing there.

 

This time I am due to arrive around 6.30pm on a Friday..... ??

[irishken]

Came into thailand through the priority lane on the 3rd of Feb and get through very quickly. 

Leaving on the 23rd, i think i would have been quicker going through the normal security and  immigration points as everyone was exiting through it.

I had to pull a few couples with  trying to jump the line while i'll was waiting in line with my kids and the line was so long that it was blocking people from getting to other parts of the airport.

[overherebc]

On 04/10/2017 at 11:02 AM, Steve Mepham said:

you can book VIP for about 1200 baht get met off the plane and walked straight through, but then you will wait for your bags 

At least you can sit and wait for your bags.

[adammike]

On 28/12/2017 at 8:05 PM, mtls2005 said:

 

Hard to predict. Suspect many people fly in on Friday or Saturday? 

 

The Visa on Arrival line has been forecast by the authorities to be lengthy.

 

The "regular" and FastTrack lines might be OK?

 

 

 

https://www.limousine.in.th/fast-track-immigration.html

 

Bangkok flight services do a fast track pass for just under 1000 BAHT.

[baboon]

Flew in yesterday (March 14) on BA9. Made my way to the arrivals hall for the A,B & C piers where there literally was not another soul apart from myself. I was through in two minutes. No questions asked or proof of funds required.