Suvarnabhumi Airport To Get Automatic Passport Check System

[metisdead]

An off topic post and reply has been removed.

[jybkk]

45 seconds per person? More like three minutes at least.

Again, as many people have been saying, this looks like it's all about Thai travellers, who may well normally get past the miserable sods in 45 seconds because of no arrival & departure cards, etc

Yes they do. They just do it the other way around.

Absolutely, and in my opinion, this would have been the easiest and cheapest solution to the whole problem.

I don't understand why it takes so long for Thais to enter and leave their own country. The process is exactly the same as for foreigners (except that they fill the departure first and arrival later on the way back).

When I leave my own country, the passport check takes just a few seconds, the officer looks at the passport, looks at me... same guy, good to go!

Edited May 25, 2011 by jybkk

[sydneyjed]

There are two nationalities of tourists out there ( I won't bother mentioning )who should just have six machines to themselves and be done with it!...Leave them to their own devices to just stuff around,blatantly queue jump with no regard for others and that should solve the main cause of this!

Should implement for Thai nationals and work permit holders only. Tourists can wait.

[pepi2005]

This will reduce the immigration processing time from 45 seconds per person to 25 seconds.

lol ... can there be ANY official government announcement without any delusional sidenotes?

:jap:

Edited May 25, 2011 by pepi2005

[moskito]

This will reduce the immigration processing time from 45 seconds per person to 25 seconds.

LOL, who was counting the time here? I never waited less than 2 min for the whole passportcheckingpagebypageandgobacktothefirstpageandstartalloveragain up to 6MINUTES.....

maybe Immigration Staff in Bkk is much faster as these ones in Phuket. Sometimes they are really unfriendly and harsh, like; YOU FARANG WILL COME IN TO MY COUNTRY where you get

all these bonus: Free Work, Free Hospital, Free Social Welfare, Free Ladys and nice weather on top....so I have to check very very VERY good if I will let you in you Alien....

Bkk checking times cant be true :jap:

[Tanaka]

I haven't been to the new airport yet, so please excuse this question: Will this be 'installation' or 'replacement' ?

Replacing some of the Immigration Officers with machines.

And the difference would be?

[writeshack]

Assuming it is ever installed and that it actually works, even if it just funnels Thai biometric passport holders into one channel surely it would be an improvement, albeit an expensive one, just so long as it frees up the other lanes it has to be welcomed. If it works. Be positive. There's a possibility for some improvement here. :jap:

[Naiplan]

Some obvious d***heads around. Over seventy.... use the diplomatic channel, pregnant.....use the diplomatic channel, invalid......use the diplomatic channel all legal and signposted as such. Can be used on both departure and arrival so most of the Pattaya mob do not have to wait more than a couple of minutes. Use it myself and it is an excellent solution for us elder types.

[cardholder]

Should implement for Thai nationals and work permit holders only. Tourists can wait.

Not everyone who is neither Thai national, nor working, is a tourist.

[wombat]

"The airport expects the system to go online at the end of the year."

TiT...

[cardholder]

I haven't been to the new airport yet, so please excuse this question: Will this be 'installation' or 'replacement' ?

Replacing some of the Immigration Officers with machines.

And the difference would be?

More smiles.... perhaps ?

[cardholder]

This will reduce the immigration processing time from 45 seconds per person to 25 seconds.

The airport expects the system to go online at the end of the year.

Surely today is not 1st April ?

[angsta]

They have them in London Stanstead but you need a UK passport. Unsure about the 25 seconds though.

[exbelg]

why not invest 1 miilion baht in a secure website /server that would get rid of the stupid 90 days report scheme ....

[Arkady]

I tried the automatic line at Heathrow with a perfectly good biometric passport and it was just like going through the Easypass lane on the expressway with a faulty tag and an irate queue behind. The machine just blinked an error message and told me to try again which I did a couple of times until an official told me to move to a manual queue. The machine seemed unable to read about 50% of the passports offered to it and an immigration officer was checking the queue to make everyone had a biometric passport. Can't imagine it will work smoothly in Thailand but at least they are trying. Some one is obviously going get to get a nice backhander from the investment too.

[whybother]

Ahhh ... I've worked it out. You know when they post news articles with something like "23 months" but it should actually be "2-3 months".

In this one, they have dropped the decimal places. It should read "reduce the waiting time from 4.5 minutes to 2.5 minutes".

oh ... and somehow they mistyped seconds instead of minutes.

Edited May 25, 2011 by whybother

[Just1Voice]

The airport expects the system to go online at the end of the year.

And offline/broken by the Chinese New Year. Oh, ok, I'll be generous...the next Songkran.

[softgeorge]

I think the same as Australia use but it is only for aussies returning to Australia. All other times you have to go through immigration.

[whybother]

why not invest 1 miilion baht in a secure website /server that would get rid of the stupid 90 days report scheme ....

They are ... it was supposed to be up in February.

[Amras]

They have them in Aus as well. Really quick. If you don't line up, takes about 15 seconds to scan your passport, gives you a ticket, you go to the biometric scanner insert ticket, it compares your biometrics to your face via a camera, approved and then lets you through. Would say takes close to 30-45 secs.

But, only AUS and NZ nationals can use it in Australia. Obviously for Visa reasons.

Thats where it becomes difficult. If your on a VISA, then somebody needs to check the visa and stamp it in your book. Thai Nationals excluded.

How they will solve this IF they want to implement it for other nationalities will be the biggest question/issue.

[Just1Voice]

why not invest 1 miilion baht in a secure website /server that would get rid of the stupid 90 days report scheme ....

They are ... it was supposed to be up in February.

Where did you hear that? God, that would be a blessing.

[Cuban]

> Should implement for Thai nationals and work permit holders only.

Knowing what IT project implementation is like within Thailand I am quite happy for this 'improvement' to be restricted to Thai nationals that have faith in the magic of a Thai managed system. Considering the value of the data that is handled I would not be surprised that interested parties might wish to place a mole with the project to gain access.

> Tourists can wait.

I recall a thread here some years ago stating that the processing time per person would be reduced to 20 seconds when the cameras were installed.

If they can't get the runway laid correctly what hope is there with something as advanced as a automated drinks machine.

[HakimKlunker]

Idea #1: Go a step further and let us ourselves insert the number of days to stay<BR>Idea #2: How can a machine be bribed?<BR>Idea #3: Do not only stop with immigration; let's also eliminate policemen and similar weed<BR>Idea #4: Ask the lord for mercy towards this world

[whybother]

why not invest 1 miilion baht in a secure website /server that would get rid of the stupid 90 days report scheme ....

They are ... it was supposed to be up in February.

Where did you hear that? God, that would be a blessing.

A Joint Foreign Chambers of Commerce meeting with the government. But, as I said ... it was supposed to be up in Feb.

Edited May 25, 2011 by whybother

[theoldgit]

They have them in London Stanstead but you need a UK passport. Unsure about the 25 seconds though.

Not quite true, assuming you are talking about the iris recognition immigration system, as well as UK passport holders a person with the right to live and work (right of abode) in the UK, or a citizen of a country in the European Economic Area (EEA) or Switzerland can apply; or have permission to enter or stay in the UK (known as 'leave to enter or remain') for more than six months, and that permission will remain valid for more than two months after your date of registration; or hold a current visa or permission to enter the UK (known as 'entry clearance') which will remain valid for more than two months after your date of registration; or are a short-term visitor to the UK and can show that you have been given permission to enter the country as a visitor at least twice in the past six months, or four times in the past 12 months, at the time of registration. But you have to apply when you are land side, I think you actually have to be leaving the UK to do it.

[dddave]

In the last two months, I have been through incoming immigration almost 10 times, at all hours of the day and have not had to wait more than 10 minutes any one of those times to get stamped through. On the other hand, I never waited less than 20 minutes in Singapore, Korea, Japan, USA,(never less than 50 minutes: LAX and ATL) Germany, Mexico, UK and Canada.

The Thais have opened many more lanes to foreigners and the improvement over earlier this year has been dramatic. They deserve positive recognition for the improvement, not the mindless sniping from the "nattering nabobs of negativism" who populate this forum.

The US has also instituted a self-checkin system called GOES but the online application was so arcane and contradictory that I gave up after several unsuccessful tries.

[rich54321]

and it gives you a bag of goodies from the duty free!!! ha ha ha - sorry

[Garry]

The country where I work in the middle east, uses a labor card system (looks like a typical credit with a chip in it). Makes for a very fast transition through the airport with the biometric scanner, as I don't even need my passport to leave or arrive in the country (in theory ).

Having a biometric passport, I expect the process to be just as smooth at Suvarnabhumi Airport. Looking forward to it.

[reason1]

I started working and studying in electronics in 1963 computers 1974 The pace in development of data acquisition storage retrieval devices has accelerated from a snail to a Ferrari. Systems like Passports are a nightmare as the installed technology on the Passport has to be 10 years old. The magnetic strip system on my own when out of fashion years ago as unreliable, easy to get dirty scratched. The best solution has to be passive needing no power and virus/hack proof. New systems can do it it easy but which one to bet on for now 20 years dev and service? To be of any use at all the system has to be obsolete and fault prone to handle old passports

[midas]

I haven't been to the new airport yet, so please excuse this question: Will this be 'installation' or 'replacement' ?

Replacing some of the Immigration Officers with machines.

76 million baht for 16 machines is 4.75 million baht per machine.

That amount of money would cover awful lot of salary for more officers.

But then again I'm sure they carried out a very precise and detailed

cost benefit analysis and I'm sure no palms were greased in LOS

Edited May 25, 2011 by midas