Picture: Thai Rath

 

Thai Rath reported that with the ever declining pandemic more and more Thais are travelling be it for tourism, study, business or work abroad.

 

This means they need passports and a visit to a passport office.

 

The media said that service at Thai passport offices has won awards for its speed and efficiency after orders from Foreign Affairs minister Don Pramudwinai to improve matters.

 

Chatchai Wiriyawechkul is now in charge and presiding over one of the success stories of Thai bureaucracy.

Thai passports have modern features and the service is fast and available nationwide with no need for people to travel to Bangkok.

 

Picture: Thai Rath

 

The number of passport offices has been expanded from 19 to 27.

 

And two were even open on Saturday this past weekend in the Bangkok area.

 

This might be expanded to the up-country provinces if there is sufficient demand. 

 

At the Pathumwan office on the fifth floor of MBK Center in downtown Bangkok a total of 1,718 passports were processed on Saturday.

 

Picture: Thai Rath

 

That was 1,339 at regular booths and 379 via electronic terminals. 

 

Normally between 700-900 are processed in a day. 

 

Meanwhile at the Bangyai office in Central Westgate, Nonthaburi, on the outskirts of the metro area 788 passports were processed on Saturday with 629 at booths and 159 at the self-service terminals. 

 

The media noted that documents for foreigners are also certified by the passport office. 

 

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speed and efficiency

 

Somethings the UK passport office is NOT !

5 hours ago, JoePai said:

speed and efficiency

 

Somethings the UK passport office is NOT !

Absolutely! You would think if Thailand can do it a developed country like the UK could do it also!????

Fastest passport I Have had was 20 minutes from walking in to walking out. Second place was submit in the morning and collect 2pm same day.

Thailand definitely has its act together in issuing/renewing passports.   Just a few weeks ago my wife renewed her Thai passport...it only took 2 (two) days from applying at the passport office and EMS delivery to our home.  She applied for renewal at the Southern Bus Station (Sai Tai Mai-Talingchan) on the 3rd floor in western Bangkok and she just walked-in with no appt. 

 

You can renew for either 5 years for Bt1,000 or 10 years for Bt1,500...the wife got the latter.   And there is a Bt40 EMS mail fee and the renewed passport is mailed back to your....at least at this office you can not come back X-days later to pickup.

 

When walking into the office there was two lines....one line was for walk-ins and one for online appt (i.e., you had made an appt online.  I guessimate approximately 90% of the people were walk-ins.   Each line lead to a window where they take your Thai ID card to start the renewal process....she was only in the walk-in queue line for about 15 minutes and once reaching the front it only takes about 30 seconds at this window.  I only saw a few people who used the online appt window....that is having started the process online.

 

Then you are directed to an another area where you set down with a person that takes your picture and fingerprints....basically "almost" completes all the renewal paperwork on the computer....this only takes 5 to 10 minutes.   You are then directed to a cahier window to pay the Bt1,000 or Bt1,500 fee....then directed to another cashier to pay the EMS return fee of Bt40.  You end of with some receipts showing payment with the EMS receipt showing an EMS tracking number.  The passport office says it will normally take 3 to 5 business days to receive your renewed passport.

 

The EMS tracking number did not show up in the Thai Postal system mail tracking until day 2 before dawn/O-dark early in the morning....and then around 2pm that day the postman delivered the passport to our house.  Yeap...two days from start to finish....a very easy and fast process.   

 

You can make an online appt at below MFA website and also see stats for each passport office around Thailand....like how many people they have serviced so far during the day, what the current queue number is, etc.   

 

https://www.qpassport.in.th/#/landing

 

Partial Snapshot of queue status/number of customers serviced during the day as of 24 Aug/4pm

 

Renewed my sons U.K. Passport from here,  17 weeks, renewed his Mothers and his Thai Passport in Pattaya, in and out in 20 minutes albeit we had made an online appointment. The new Thai passports arrived in 2 days, Thai Passports have twice as many pages as a U.K. Passport as well.

21 minutes ago, Jumbo1968 said:

Renewed my sons U.K. Passport from here,  17 weeks, renewed his Mothers and his Thai Passport in Pattaya, in and out in 20 minutes albeit we had made an online appointment. The new Thai passports arrived in 2 days, Thai Passports have twice as many pages as a U.K. Passport as well.

This just highlights what an utter shambles and embarrassment HMPO is... 

 

IF this were a business [HMPO] they would have failed as everyone boycotts them due to atrocious performance, unfortunately, all ‘customers’ are a captive audience left without any choice, as such the inefficiency within the HMPO becomes the norm amongst staff whose only goal is the continued entitlement to ‘take it easy’.... and make very poor excuses.

I enjoyed reading good news story about Thailand.

22 hours ago, webfact said:

The number of passport offices has been expanded from 19 to 27.

With around 77 provinces that's nothing to boast about.

21 hours ago, JoePai said:

speed and efficiency

 

Somethings the UK passport office is NOT !

At least you don't have to apply in person like Thailand.

2 minutes ago, hotchilli said:

At least you don't have to apply in person like Thailand.

6+ weeks waiting time vs having to travel to a passport office. I know which option I'd choose...

6 minutes ago, JayClay said:

6+ weeks waiting time vs having to travel to a passport office. I know which option I'd choose...

If 6+ weeks isn't a problem why make it sound like one?

21 minutes ago, hotchilli said:

If 6+ weeks isn't a problem why make it sound like one?

It is

1 minute ago, JayClay said:

It is

 

Yet, the Myanmar Embassy in BKK has told its millions of citizens with expired passports in the country they will need to wait until after the new year.  So with my GF's passport expiring in November along with her extension of stay I hired an agent who obtained a que this past Tuesday for my GF to renew her passport at the Myanmar consulate in Chiang Mai, where they are only doing 100 a day.  Had too pay for her to be driven up with 10 other, they drove overnight on Monday, and arrived Tuesday morning where she was processed and was told it will take a month for the passport to be mailed to her here in Bangkok, at which time she will have to have the 1 month left on her extension transferred into the new passport and we will start the process again.  Thai citizens are lucky to be able to do it at a terminal and get it so quickly. Even as a US Citizen it took over 2 weeks from application to having it in hand.

2 hours ago, hotchilli said:

At least you don't have to apply in person like Thailand.

There's always one isn't there.  Can't stand a good news story about Thailand so you have to somehow make it as though there's a negative that "the west" does better.  UK passport renewals are a shambles and an embarrassment.

Renewed my son's Thai passport recently, we were in at 9am, out by 9.15am and picked up the passport at 2pm.  Caught a flight that same evening, stress free, as we knew there would be no problem getting the passport quickly.  Absolute efficiency.

The UK passport agency maybe a government agency, but most of the work has been 'contracted out'. Some may remember the chaos of the new Siemens-Nixdorf computer system which utterly failed to deal with applications in even moderate volumes. Also the printing is contracted out ( there was a furore when it turned out the new Navy Blue passports were going to be printed in France -well done Brexit!).

Many of these delays with government work are because the government doesn't actually do it - it was contracted out to the lowest or best connected bidder - that's Capitalism for you.

32 minutes ago, rickudon said:

The UK passport agency maybe a government agency, but most of the work has been 'contracted out'. Some may remember the chaos of the new Siemens-Nixdorf computer system which utterly failed to deal with applications in even moderate volumes. Also the printing is contracted out ( there was a furore when it turned out the new Navy Blue passports were going to be printed in France -well done Brexit!).

Many of these delays with government work are because the government doesn't actually do it - it was contracted out to the lowest or best connected bidder - that's Capitalism for you.

VFS are not a government agency, they are the contractors who deal with the applications for UK visas and passport renewals.  They check the documentation, do the biometrics and forward the application to UKVI (for visas) in Sheffield or India, and to HMPO (for passports) in Liverpool.  They also have similar contracts for Australian, Canadian and (I think) Netherlands visas.

 

The delays in the UK are totally down to government inefficiency and cutbacks, Covid (if you believe them!) and Brexit (if you believe Remainers like me!).