Australians and New Zealanders may soon be able to use Automatic Gates at Suvarnabhumi

 

Picture: INN

 

The director of Suvarnabhumi airport in Bangkok has said that Australians, New Zealanders and Japanese are being considered as the next nationalities to be allowed to use the automatic passport gates. 

 

Singaporeans and people from Hong Kong can already use them. 

 

The comment came from Wing Commander Sutheerawat Suwannawat as he announced that the airport were applying to the Airports Authority of Thailand for a 200 million baht budget to install eight more "Auto Gates" inbound next year. 

 

Pressure is mounting on the airport to speed things up. 

 

At present there are 16 - eight inbound and eight outbound. People from Singapore and Hong Kong can use two of them. 

 

INN News quoted the Wing Commander as saying that the airport was waiting to see if the new nationalities were "appropriate" for using the gates.

 

The new gates are needed to ease pressure at the airport. Another senior official said that there are 93 counters in and 62 counters out at the moment. 

 

The official claimed that mostly people pass in 15 minutes but at busy times it can take 45 minutes per person. 

 

Source: INN

 

 

-- © Copyright Thai Visa News 2019-08-23

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6 officers stationed by each machine?

Discrimination

Where are the automatic gates for Germans, Americans, Brits?

Edited August 23, 20196 yr by sweatalot

1 hour ago, sweatalot said:

Discrimination

Where are the automatic gates for Germans, Americans, Brits?

In the EU !

How do the automatic gates work to register fingerprints?  In Singapore - where they register fingerprints for all non-Singaporeans - the automatic gates can only be used by some other nationalities if they've already entered Singapore twice and subsequently register for automatic gate use

1 hour ago, sweatalot said:

Discrimination

Where are the automatic gates for Germans, Americans, Brits?

Are you worthy?  Just asking becsuse they want quality tourists, big spenders and we aussies spend big

35 minutes ago, Reigntax said:

In the EU !

smart choice to allow Australians and NZ'ers to be next in line. They are relatively small in visitor numbers as well as trouble free and law abiding. No need to over scutinize them ????

Gates for Non-B and Non-O visa holders ??!!

Australia and New Zealand are part of the ASEAN Free Trade area, could be why ????

1 hour ago, sweatalot said:

Discrimination

Where are the automatic gates for Germans, Americans, Brits?

I'm Canadian, let's take them to court. 

1 hour ago, sweatalot said:

Discrimination

Where are the automatic gates for Germans, Americans, Brits?

These three categories of nationalities are highly suspect lol lol ???? that’s why 

17 minutes ago, Pungdo said:

Australia and New Zealand are part of the ASEAN Free Trade area, could be why ????

They are not member of ASEAN

So get TM6 and all foreigner check process done that way?? ready for TM30 reporting... GREAT!!!!

Edited August 23, 20196 yr by catch104

Please do this at Don Mueang too! 

6 hours ago, webfact said:

The new gates are needed to ease pressure at the airport

After you passed the gate, please proceed to the immigration queue to check passport, visa, Tm6, get stamps etc.

Whatever it takes to speed things up at Swampy is a good thing. Not sure why they picked these nations, but it barely matters. Good on them. Just get more efficient please. Nobody wants to wait on a one hour line after finishing a 10-25 hour trip. Just do your jobs. Be competent. Man up. 

33 minutes ago, Pungdo said:

Australia and New Zealand are part of the ASEAN Free Trade area, could be why ????

I'd suspect that Australia and New Zealand may well be negotiating opening their own smart gates to Thais

11 minutes ago, catch104 said:

They are not member of ASEAN

He didn't say they were...he said "Australia and New Zealand are part of the ASEAN Free Trade area" which is true.

 

The twelve AANZFTA Parties include:

• Australia
• Brunei Darussalam
• Cambodia
• Indonesia
• Lao PDR
• Malaysia

• Myanmar
• New Zealand
• Philippines
• Singapore
• Thailand
• Viet Nam

2 hours ago, sweatalot said:

Discrimination

Where are the automatic gates for Germans, Americans, Brits?

Those machines may have been prioritized at the departure gate whatever that might mean … ????

I would think automation (??) would be more logical in the following order:

1) Thai Citizen

2) 1(+)year extension of stay holders - already have Immigration clearance files

3) Visa on arrival countries

4) Country that borders Thailand

5) etc

 

Just a thought

Most of the tourists are from China, it would take a big load off if they can use the automatic machines instead.

 

Why Singapore and Hong Kong? Look at chart below.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tourism_in_Thailand#Top_25_arrivals_by_nationality

 

2018 chart

 

1. China

2. Malaysia

3. Korea

4. Laos

5. Japan

Edited August 23, 20196 yr by EricTh

2 minutes ago, EricTh said:

Most of the tourists are from China, it would take a big load off if they can use the automatic machines instead.

It's fairly obvious they're offering the facility to passport holders of countries that already have well-established systems already.

I'm surprised it hasn't happened already as Thai passport holders can the automatic gates in Australia.

2 hours ago, sweatalot said:

Discrimination

Where are the automatic gates for Germans, Americans, Brits?

With all the arabs now in EU, a little more and Europeans will be banned from the rest of the world.

 

7 minutes ago, edwardflory said:

I would think automation (??) would be more logical in the following order:

1) Thai Citizen

2) 1(+)year extension of stay holders - already have Immigration clearance files

3) Visa on arrival countries

4) Country that borders Thailand

5) etc

 

Just a thought

Not much advantage using automatic gates if everyone can use them. Same long line without the happy, smiling, helpful IO

Wife used Thai passport at E gates on last visit to Australia earlier this year, arrival and departure. Maybe the choice of Australia and NZ is a reciprocal thing.

 

Good guys in bad guys out.55

4 minutes ago, Peterw42 said:

Wife used Thai passport at E gates on last visit to Australia earlier this year, arrival and departure. Maybe the choice of Australia and NZ is a reciprocal thing.

Interesting seeing that Thai passports are not supposed to be eligible - https://www.abf.gov.au/entering-and-leaving-australia/smartgates/arrivals. However all passengers use an Egate on departure

Edited August 23, 20196 yr by ThaiBunny

Wonderful news for Ozzies and Kiwis.  I hope they will have better luck using the machines than I have had.  As a Thai citizen the machine rarely recognises my prints first time and sometimes not at all, resulting in me being shoved into the manual queue.  I am hopeful that the new biometrics system hopefully to be introduced by the new 10-year passport concessionaire will be more efficient.  Mobile phones have no problem recognising prints every time, so I am not sure why a system costing millions of dollars cannot.

49 minutes ago, catch104 said:

They are not member of ASEAN

You better read up oi 

 

https://dfat.gov.au/trade/agreements/in-force/aanzfta/Pages/asean-australia-new-zealand-free-trade-agreement.aspx