Airport Immigration

[sunshinegirl]

Just a word of caution, It took 3 hours to clear immigration today. The place was horrendous.people were actually starting to fight amongst themselves and losing the place. Loads of people that had taxis booked found they had gone. Cant blame them really Who's going to hang around for 3 hours waiting for their fare.

[prefabs]

Getting beyond a joke now. There are various threads in the Suv, Airport site and no one seems to give a dam_n

[RabC]

Why is this in the Pattaya Threads?

[jehricaholic]

Why is this in the Pattaya Threads?

some of us don't like to wander too much outside the 4 walls of the Pattaya Thaivisa room, it's quite an abyss on the rest of the website.

[Rimmer]

Best I move this to the airport forum

[lonewolf99]

What time of day did you arrive ?

I have noticed previously that arriving late evening can be bad and also midday. I come through every 2 months late p.m. before 1700 and it has been OK ?

Maybe no more than 15 to 20 at a queue. I always head for a queue that feeds two manned/womaned desks. This splits the number in half being dealt with, unless you are behind people who have not filled out the landing card, seperated the landing card and cannot remember where they put the departure part, or decided to go through as a combined group or a whole family (middle eastern visitors) with 6 or more kids all travelling on mums passport........

[h7eds]

I also am a frequent visitor to the land of smiles......its getting worse for sure......leaving and arriving......with the usual thai attitude of ...who cares ???

[hands22]

It was horrendous all right! I arrived around mid-day (probably one of the worst time to arrive) during late Feb and there were long, confusing queues. You might find yourself queuing at the end of one line only to find, horror of horror, this line of people joining up with another line somewhere in the middle and only one immigration officer on duty in front of this mess! My blood pressure went up all right! It was a long 2 hours wait and all the time I was waiting, I tried to stop thinking.... please, please, nobody steal my luggage!

It's a simple case of insufficient manpower more than anything else.

[sunshinegirl]

It was horrendous all right! I arrived around mid-day (probably one of the worst time to arrive) during late Feb and there were long, confusing queues. You might find yourself queuing at the end of one line only to find, horror of horror, this line of people joining up with another line somewhere in the middle and only one immigration officer on duty in front of this mess! My blood pressure went up all right! It was a long 2 hours wait and all the time I was waiting, I tried to stop thinking.... please, please, nobody steal my luggage!

It's a simple case of insufficient manpower more than anything else.

I arrived at 1pm and the biggest problem was they just got up and closed desks and all the people from that queue started pushing in to our queue. A lot of the times there was just one person on.

My luggage was lying itself in the middle of the airport Anyone could have went off with it. Loads of luggage lying scattered everywher. I cant remember it being so bad. .

[User3]

Arrived from Mumbai at 7:40 am on Friday and immigration was 50 minutes. Thai only immigration booths had 4 clerks and only about 3 people showing up every 10 minutes or so. Rest of the time they just chatted away to each other.

People with kids were pulled out of the main immigration line-ups once in a while to go to the idle Thai only booths, but not very often.

Actual processing was quick and efficient.

[Fookhaht]

It's a simple case of insufficient manpower more than anything else.

They have the manpower, it's a case of inability or disinterest by management to plan ahead for high-traffic periods. Somehow, they haven't made the genius connection between flight schedules and work schedules. The flight schedules are known months in advance. Surely, that's enough time to martial the troops, isn't it?

When a 747 or Airbus lands in my western hometown at 4 a.m., dozens of processing immigration clerks flood the booths just minutes prior to handle the rush. I've never waited over 20 minutes in 9 years of arriving from abroad.

Part of living in a developing country which still has serious vestiges of third-world characteristics.

[jibberjabberjibberjabber]

Yes it is bad at BKK but I often have the same flying into the US (officials only serving US passengers) and often to SYD, LHR or CDG. Poor immigration isn't just a Thai thing although I would conceed BKK is probably the worst of the Asian airports and does damage their efforts in trying to become a regional hub.

[JBL]

So how will we go with arriving at BKK via Malaysian Air @ 13:25 (on a saturday) and have a domestic flight departing for Ubon @ 16:00?

JBL

[jibberjabberjibberjabber]

Take a look at the arrivals from the previous Saturday and you can see the volume of traffic arriving at the same time as your flight. Generally speaking long haul flights from Europe are bad (they all tend to all arrive at the same time at around 3.30pm ish) and short hauls from surrounding ASEAN countries are not so much of an issue.

You should also note that there are 2 immigration halls. Before you make your way up the ramp towards the booths you will see a bunch of video screens that show the sort queues in the other one. If the other looks empty just keep walking and use that one... you may then have to stroll back to find your baggage carousel but personally I would prefer to do that than wait an eternity for the queue to clear

[glassdude007]

departing Bangkok for Mexico on Feb 29th the line for immigration departure went on forever I've never seen it so bad,

people were in panick mode for sure..

I must give a big WELL DONE to British Airways as they gave me and all of the folks traveling with them a

PRIORITY PASS free of charge...Still took over an hour to clear out of security and immigration even with Priority Pass card.

Main problem seems to be the slow slack attitude and lack of open windows at the Thai Immigration, even the open lines the officials slow and playing grab ass telling jokes typicial HI So Immigration officer attitudes...some windows closed with 2 officers just sitting there smileing away doing NOTHING AT ALL

[bkk_mike]

For arrivals at least... If the first immigration is queueing out the door walk to the other one.

I've only once got there and found it as bad as the first one.

For departures, I don't think there's much we can do individually except allow more time... At least until the central immigration section reopens. Immigration could probably do something about it (i.e. pre-check passports in the queue?), but all that would do would be to move the queue to security...

[JBL]

Flight arrived @ 13:30 sat 7/04 from KUL was in domestic with bags collected & rechecked in, boarding passes sorted & even fitted in a toilet stop within about 45min

[Dah fahrang]

......and, after passing through the queues departing Suvarnabhumi, awaiting you as you step off your long haul flight into a UK airport.......

is this!

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/travelnews/9193322/Air-passengers-face-months-of-airport-delays.html

[Rinrada]

In addition the Iris scanners, which enable thousands of passengers to bypass the immigration desks, are being removed from terminals

Thhe BEST idea that the H.O came up with and they are getting rid of them...beyond ??????

[Rinrada]

5 minutes to depart/pass through Immigration @ Suwanna this morning and another 5 minutes (about 12 hours later) via IRIS entry @ Heathrow T 4 to enter the smoke...Cant complain.

Eti Flights ..good

[Eff1n2ret]

5 minutes to depart/pass through Immigration @ Suwanna this morning and another 5 minutes (about 12 hours later) via IRIS entry @ Heathrow T 4 to enter the smoke...Cant complain.

Eti Flights ..good

Oh, so they haven't removed the IRIS yet then? Anybody know if it's still working at Terminal 3?

[Eff1n2ret]

5 minutes to depart/pass through Immigration @ Suwanna this morning and another 5 minutes (about 12 hours later) via IRIS entry @ Heathrow T 4 to enter the smoke...Cant complain.

Eti Flights ..good

Oh, so they haven't removed the IRIS yet then? Anybody know if it's still working at Terminal 3?

To answer my own question, yes, the IRIS booths were still working at Terminal 3 yesterday evening, so we could still do our usual trick of being amongst the last off the plane and first into the baggage hall.

And no queues at immigration departures at Suvarnabhumi either (yesterday around 11 am).