Phuket airport gets bigger in time for Songkran

[webfact]

Phuket airport gets bigger in time for Songkran

By The Nation

 

FILE photo

 

Phuket International Airport has given travellers more room to lounge and added other facilities to cope with an anticipated surge over the Songkran holidays.
 

Airports of Thailand president Nitinai Sirismatthakarn said on Friday an additional 5,550 square metres had been opened in the concourse the day before.

 

The Tourism Authority of Thailand has predicted that 393,900 travellers will use Phuket airport from April 11-17 – a rate of 56,300 per day, representing an increase of 16.8 per cent over Songkran 2017.

 

Nitinai said the passenger building on the north side of the airport was being renovated and was opening in stages.

 

On Thursday a 3,000-square-metre second-floor lobby opened, with extra toilet facilities.

 

On the first floor, 2,550 additional square metres will handle arrivals via the bus gate, and a third luggage conveyor was added, so passengers can collect their bags faster, Nitinai said.

 

Next month, he said, 350 more luggage check-in stations would be ready.

 

Nitinai said renovations would be complete by June, including more X-ray scanners to hasten departures.

 

Source: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/detail/breakingnews/30342608

 

-- © Copyright The Nation 2018-04-06

[schlog]

This report must be absolutley wrong with it's numbers.

 

350 new check in stations. 5500m2?Who believe this? International terminal maybe has 70 lol. Each row with 10 stations and 7 rows.

 

Best cut the last digit at all reported numbers then maybe it's correct.

[LivinginKata]

Have they increased the number of Immigration officers with functioning computer stations, both departures and especially arrivals ...

Edited April 6, 2018 by LivinginKata

[exppenang]

International travelers will still need to go through immigration. There are lots of stations, just no immigration officers to work in them. This is the real bottleneck at Phuket International.

[KhunBENQ]

2 hours ago, schlog said:

350 new check in stations. 5500m2?Who believe this? International terminal maybe has 70 lol. Each row with 10 stations and 7 rows.

Thai news and numbers

Ridiculous mistakes almost daily.

I should start a collection.

[KhunBENQ]

From a Thai source it sounds like an extra 350 sqm for luggage handling/checkin.

Seems like a hefty mistranslation.

 

Edited April 6, 2018 by KhunBENQ

[schlog]

14 hours ago, KhunBENQ said:

From a Thai source it sounds like an extra 350 sqm for luggage handling/checkin.

Seems like a hefty mistranslation.

 

This sounds realistic.

[Darcula]

19 hours ago, webfact said:

Next month, he said, 350 more luggage check-in stations would be ready.

 

They would need to empty Phuket prison for the baggage handlers to attend to this demand.

 

[steelepulse]

What is everyone complaining about?  Airport chief says everything is fine, no problems whatsoever....................

 

 

[Argus Tuft]

Can confirm now that the additional 350 luggage check-in stations were there....

 

...unfortunately 347 of them were closed, and a further two were inoperable due to Facebook usage

[Argus Tuft]

Back to being serious, the additional concourse space - my assumption is it is at the Domestic end, would this be correct?

Article mentioned North side in a separate sentence, but it was a bit vague

 

Any info on this?