Officials silent on Phuket Airport immigration mess

[performance]

Put Simply

 

Immigration mumbling stumbling mess

[Pdavies99]

14 hours ago, Redvic said:

No different to swampy. Thai customs is probably the worst i've ever passed through. 

I was at suvarbhumi today at 7am, I've never seen it so bad, without exaggerating there was about 200 people in front of me.

 

It took over 2 hours to get through!

 

[Bangkok Barry]

3 hours ago, 1337markus said:

So it taking about an hour at Phuket. Compare the equivalent at Chiangi, Singapore I have cleared immigration many times on average in 3 minutes with a smile and free mouth freshening lozenge.  Why the difference, same process?

 

And I flew from Don Muang to Singapore. Took an hour to check in at Bangkok,  and less than a minute in Singapore. Some airports, like Beijing, ask you to push a button at the immigration desk to express your level of satisfaction. Thailand doesn't have that. I wonder why.

[sandemara]

Bobmac got it right on the button.  Authorities that don't make their country's education system the best it can be have no faith in their nation's people.  They most probably fear them.  I'd like to think some other reason exists, but history tells me differently. I wonder why this is so?

[SpaceKadet]

54 minutes ago, The manic said:

You have never travelled much. Try Tripoli or Dharan or Jeddah.....to name but three.

 

I am not sure if we are talking customs or immigration here, but you've certainly haven't been to Jeddah in a long time. Customs have had X-ray scanners since years. Just put your bags on the belt and pick them up on the other side. Very seldom do the custom officers bother to open the bags. Also the immigration has been very fast and efficient since years. In the 80's you could wait for 6 hours at immigration, the last couple of years it was taking me less that 30 minutes from entering the terminal to entering the taxi outside. Longest time spent was waiting for the bags to arrive.

[siam2007]

1 hour ago, alex8912 said:

I was just in Bali recently and I have never witnessed a quicker immigration team. I was timing it too and 20 seconds was an average time per person. I don't know how this could be done. I didn't even see my passport scanned but it must have been. The biggest holdup was that the immigration officers had to keep yelling out to the next person to proceed to them. Does anyone know about this airports procedure and how it's so quick? Is it just their new 30 day exempt for many countries? I heard people from AUS still need a visa but many of them were in line as well 

 

 

keep in mind that Bali can be a giant mess and people have been waiting 3-4 hours there as recent as 2016. This was a big topic in OZ.

It always depends on which time of the day you are arriving and how many flights arrive at the same time. When booking flights to known "horror-immigration-locations" that included, at least until recently, Bali too, I always check how many flights would arrive at the same time and then rather take another flight at a different time of the day

[patongphil]

2 hours ago, exalll said:

 

Try Beijing

Ha Ha Ha try Dar Es Salaam

[eisfeld]

10 minutes ago, sandemara said:

Bobmac got it right on the button.  Authorities that don't make their country's education system the best it can be have no faith in their nation's people.  They most probably fear them.  I'd like to think some other reason exists, but history tells me differently. I wonder why this is so?

 

Well if such a button would exist, it would be either broken or nobody would ever look at the results. Or they'd find a way to spin/fake it into superb results. I haven't seen many places that value feedback as little as here.

[OMGImInPattaya]

There are thousands of island resorts in Asia...cant these people go someplace else?

[madusa]

When they invent a new system of clearing passport on board the aircraft your problem will be solved. All the passports will be scan by the airline staff on board the aircraft to the airport immigration before arrival.
 On arrival you will be direct to the machine for stamping the arrival date .

Fast and simple.

Mean time you will suffer until they figure out a quick method of clearing passport which may take a quarter of a century, that is if they do figure out something at all.

[ChrisY1]

51 minutes ago, Old Croc said:

When they have only 3 people to process large numbers of passengers arriving on international flights, it is not accidental, nor due to staff shortages, nor equipment failure, it is deliberate industrial action of some sort.

The Immigration Dept  in this country appears to be omnipotent. They set, and break, their own rules with impunity and seem to be outside parliamentary control.

They are not a client orientated entity. They appear to have no corporate plan setting targets to improve service for their customers in an efficient and timely manner. It seems they value personal power and  richness enhancement ahead of anything else.

While these individuals are allowed to demean, delay,  harass and deter, people who bring in a large part of Thailand's income, the country will never progress into the real world.

To use the fact that former lax policies resulted in far too many "Bad Guys" entering, is not a reasonable excuse to treat valued tourists in this manner.

There is a balance, others countries manage it.

They're the police....a law unto themselves!

[alex8912]

21 minutes ago, siam2007 said:

 

 

keep in mind that Bali can be a giant mess and people have been waiting 3-4 hours there as recent as 2016. This was a big topic in OZ.

It always depends on which time of the day you are arriving and how many flights arrive at the same time. When booking flights to known "horror-immigration-locations" that included, at least until recently, Bali too, I always check how many flights would arrive at the same time and then rather take another flight at a different time of the day

Ok. I understand.  Several flights did arrive when I was there but it was the actual processing time. It was really 15 to 25 seconds per person. I witnessed over a dozen people pass through. It just seems amazingly quick. Swampy is always one minute +++. They take more time looking for my visa even though I open it to the visa page!  The first thing they do here is take my form CLOSE my passport and then start the search for my visa!  The last two times I came here I opened it to the visa page and said to them "this is my current visa " it actually helped.  

[sigfig]

3 hours ago, 1337markus said:

So it taking about an hour at Phuket. Compare the equivalent at Chiangi, Singapore I have cleared immigration many times on average in 3 minutes with a smile and free mouth freshening lozenge.  Why the difference, same process?

 

Is your halitosis that bad?

[1duckyboy]

The Phuket News better have their legal team ready for suits by the Airport Authority, TAT, and the Thai government for slander and damaging Thailand's image. 

 

A month ago got from my plane, through immigration and to the bus ticket counter in 15 minutes at Swampy. Rarely wait more than 20 minutes there. YMMV

[monkey4u]

Ask for a wheel chair to meet you on arrival

No waiting easy peasy

Sling the guy pushing you a few hundred bart and he will do anything for you 

[sigfig]

The first thing you must understand is that working in the Thai civil service is a sinecure, not a proper job in the usual sense; as is well known, a prospective employee must generally be 'connected' and have the funds available to secure the said employment. In return, the very worst that can happen throughout a person's working life, barring the committal of a capital crime, is transfer to an inactive post. Small wonder then that the 'job' becomes a lifestyle, with all the benefits and slack working practices that implies. Any objective time-and-motion study would point up where cost savings and efficiencies could be made, but what would be the cost in terms of social upheaval?

[Chicog]

20 minutes ago, alex8912 said:

Ok. I understand.  Several flights did arrive when I was there but it was the actual processing time. It was really 15 to 25 seconds per person. I witnessed over a dozen people pass through. It just seems amazingly quick. Swampy is always one minute +++. They take more time looking for my visa even though I open it to the visa page!  The first thing they do here is take my form CLOSE my passport and then start the search for my visa!  The last two times I came here I opened it to the visa page and said to them "this is my current visa " it actually helped.  

 

That's another stupid check.

They always ask me if I have a "visa" in my passport for the Middle East and insist on looking at it.

Forget the fact that, as a British passport holder, you get Visa on Arrival in most Gulf states.

 

Pointless.

[55Jay]

Enjoy the posts dissecting elements and contributing factors at the root of the problem.

 

"Situation normal' in the comfort zone.  The guy in charge, terrified to make a decision that runs counter to the norm.

 

Social media has become the lighting rod of choice to circumvent layers of ineffective,  government bureaucracy.   The lady boy up north pretending to take a bath in a pot hole on a rural highway, is a great example. 

 

But the spasmodic, knee jerk reactions are rooted in embarrassment, not an honest follow up assessment of a system or policy that might need adjustment.  Decisive action puts out the brush fire, and if the managers get through it unscathed, they just go back to sleep.  

 

 

[louse1953]

15 hours ago, Redvic said:

No different to swampy. Thai customs is probably the worst i've ever passed through. 

5555,obviosly never been through either of Bangkoks airports.In the 40 years i have been coming to Thailand,i have found them the easiest.Nothing to declare,you don't even see Customs.Something to declare,"mai phen rai",keep walking.

[Mises]

15 hours ago, Redvic said:

No different to swampy. Thai customs is probably the worst i've ever passed through. 

 

Try Atlanta immigration even as a transit passenger: 1 hour 50 minutes and then another 20 minutes for security to check you did not find a bomb on the previous flight or was slipped one by the surly immigration officer. You think the Thai immigration are surly? Try US ones.

I only just made the connecting flight by dint of my flight into Atlanta being 25 minutes early. No fast track either for transit or business, how 3rd world is that? And you have to collect your bag and dump it on another belt 25m away, no checks or anything, what the hell is the point of that?

The queues at LHR Terminal 3 for non EU passports were always at least one hour, the new Terminal 2 is a breeze though which is how the new terminal at Phuket should be. At least Phuket does have a single queue system now though, it just seems that many of the immigration officers could not find their way from the old terminal and or could not bring the old computer and web cam with them.

[louse1953]

3 hours ago, yellowboat said:

While living in Bangkok, never saw an automatic photo booth for taking passport photos.  If you are thinking of a place where ingenuity and automation are welcomed, forget Thailand.  A person with the rank of Pol Lt Col cannot speak to the press ? 

Why do you need a machine when a real live human can do the same job and even put me in a suit even though photographed in a singlet.Don't even own a suit and tie but best dressed photos i have ever had.

[AlQaholic]

5 hours ago, bokningar said:

So they have a new terminal, but no one that can make a schedule for immigration staff  that matches arrival and departure's.

Not even high tech , just need some one that can make proper planing . And this is the real problem. No one can 

It's like the toilets in any big shopping complex anywhere in Thailand, every time you need to use the toilets or urinals, there is always some staff cleaning the place, but when the mall is empty nobody is there, because nobody could come up with the revolutionary plan to schedule the working hours for the cleaning staff at appropriate times....

[FredNL]

BKK on July 24th. Arrival at 17:40. Outside at 20:10. Passing through immigration took more than 2 hours. My Thai wife went through and had to wait over 2 hours. It had one advantage. I didn't have to pick up and carry my luggage. My wife did it for me.

[hhinhh]

16 hours ago, Redvic said:

No different to swampy. Thai customs is probably the worst i've ever passed through. 

Maybe you but there are much worse, I can tell you. Needed 1.5 hours at Beijing recently.

[hotchilli]

4 hours ago, 1337markus said:

So it taking about an hour at Phuket. Compare the equivalent at Chiangi, Singapore I have cleared immigration many times on average in 3 minutes with a smile and free mouth freshening lozenge.  Why the difference, same process?

Singapore is about 50 years ahead of Thailand.. 

or should I say Thailand is behind Singapore by about 50 years!!!

or maybe Singapore treat tourists as human beings who are travelling, and not treated as nuisance farangs!!!

One day Thailand will actually wake up to the fact that it's now within ASEAN & change it's policies accordingly.

[geisha]

@bobmac10, I quite agree with you. The huge lack of education is driving Thailand into the ground. One can see it on every level of working life that Thailand is far behind,and it's going to take a new education system to change things.

[monkey4u]

43 minutes ago, louse1953 said:

5555,obviosly never been through either of Bangkoks airports.In the 40 years i have been coming to Thailand,i have found them the easiest.Nothing to declare,you don't even see Customs.Something to declare,"mai phen rai",keep walking.

For a while at Swampy when you arrived late at night there was a guy in a white uniform at customs

He always had a smile on his dial and saluted you as you passed him

Haven't seen him for a couple of years now 

[gemguy]

"Men, gather around"

"Send 40 more of my most (in)competent officers to resolve this problem the foreigners are causing us.

"Meantime, Captain Doo- Little ..Where is the book of standard lame excuses and plausible reasons ...and hurry.

 

Cheers

[todlad]

3 hours ago, bobmac10 said:

All the calamitous chaotic events that happen here on a daily basis come down to one thing: A terrible education system.

Planning, logical deduction,quality control,systems improvement, etc etc just are not part of the education curriculum.

I've worked with many university graduates who would not hold a job in the West for long despite their qualifications.

It starts at primary school, being to told to follow and obey, not to question.

Until the Thais can grasp the nettle and face up to the apalling standard of their education system and make the necessary changes, things will continue as they are.

And, if you are going to post the headline that some of Thailand's universities came in among the top-ranked in the world, I'm sorry, I just don't believe that. It's more BS disguised in official looking words.

 

Well, your argument had some merit until you carte blanched dismissed the quality of all Thai Universities. I have seen one if not two of them on a list in the top 200 in the world. I have no reason to doubt that list.

 

I wonder if you have evidence for your assertion or just disbelief?

[sendintheclowns]

On just about all my return trips back to Thailand, over the past 20 years, the airplane crew said they did not have the Thai Immigration forms. We had to wait, disembark, and rush to find counter where forms were available.  Stressful when you are trying to make a domestic connection. Why not allow incoming international passengers the option of filling in these forms, whilst aboard the aircraft.? Would not help if not enough officials  there to process them promptly. Perhaps this is all leading to a big push to sell VIP/ Fast Lane cards. I'd pay.