Travelers beware - X-Ray machines on arrival set to increase

 

Picture: Sanook

 

BANGKOK: -- Passengers arriving at international airports in Thailand can expect far greater scrutiny of luggage from next year.

 

The excise department said they are putting out to tender for the purchase of 2 billion baht's worth of new X-ray machines with conveyor belts, reported Sanook.

 

Chief of Customs and Excise Kulit Sombatsiri said that the machines will be able to detect everything from people who have bought too many dutiable gifts to those trying to smuggle items such as rhino horns.

 

The machines will be able to detect items such as ivory, drugs, weapons and chemicals used in the pursuance of crime, he said.

 

The department hopes to have decided where to buy the machines by September and intends to have them up and running in 2018.

 

Suvarnabhumi will be the first to be upgraded with 23 machines while six each will be fitted later at Don Muang, Koh Samui, Chiang Mai and Phuket airports.

 

The total budget already approved by the government is in the region of 2 billion baht, said chief Kulit.

 

Sanook.com said in its headline that "shopaholics" should beware of buying too many goods while abroad.

 

Source: Sanook

 

-- © Copyright Thai Visa News 2017-03-24

 

The motivations here clearly being for more revenues for the customs

rather than security reasons, they will also have to increase their work

force my several folds to man those machines and search begs of

millions of passengers, and soon before you know it, those machines

will be mothballed under the sign of " too hard to do "......

... and to stop all the naughty foreigners from bringing food from home in their luggage. Seems the party is really over.

Nothing says Welcome better than being scrutinized the second you land.

I think they forgot to mention that they just adapted those forgotten bomb detectors they bought many years ago for millions of baht and how they found a way to put them in a box to detect everything under the sun... and now they call it an x-ray machine... ooopsss

 

 

Edited March 24, 20179 yr by LazySlipper

more money for the boys

They must be pretty advanced machines to be able to detect all across the spectrum. They would still be large to house all the sniffers.

 

Hope the operators are up to the task.......................

This is just stupid..

The amount of luggage that arrives at the airport when a few 747s 

land is huge, absolutely huge...No way they will be checking

all that luggage..Not in a million years...

Edited March 24, 20179 yr by fforest1

I thought the AOT already had plenty of spare machines after the Suvharnabumi purchases......but maybe the wrong people got the commissions back then!

1 hour ago, the guest said:

... and to stop all the naughty foreigners from bringing food from home in their luggage. Seems the party is really over.

Yup, i won't bring anymore cheese...i don't want to be the one who pays for these machines. 

 

If they were serious in finding bombs or chemicals they would order snifferdogs. 

29 minutes ago, fforest1 said:

This is just stupid..

The amount of luggage that arrives at the airport when a few 747s 

land is huge, absolutely huge...No way they will be checking

all that luggage..Not in a million years...

 

Expect longer waits for your luggage to arrive.

They've had luggage scanners on arrival at Phuket since the new terminal opened and most bags are scrutinised.

 

The good news is that I have got away with teabags, cheese, chocolate bars and lots more on two occasions. I would hope they have more important items to look for, such as rhino horns, elephant tusks and drugs.

 

 

What makes you think cheese or any other food items are prohibited from entering Thailand?  I think this is for duty free items in excess like more than one liter of alchohol. I think cheese is fine. Thais mostly don't like smelly cheese anyways. There is no duty due on tea bags or cheese don't worry! No rhino horns, bombs and excess perfume and alchohol and with them you just have to pay the duty due if caught ( perfume and liquor). 

Edited March 24, 20179 yr by alex8912

A few weeks ago we arrived at Phuket airport and for the first time in maybe 50 visits to Thailand I noticed a queue after grabbing our suitcases off the conveyor belt.

Normally just walk straight out but this time a strange sight, queue at least 40metres long and luggage was being scanned. After our spot in the queue reduced to about 20meters people started to just walk past the x-ray machine and so did we.

Our luggage wasn't scanned. I think the scanning guys started waving people through with the queue becoming massive :)

People mentioned food above. Wife always brings maybe 1/2 a suitcase full of things like chocolate, hot English mustard, macadamia nuts, honey, red wine etc etc. I know you can probably buy most in Thailand but can't be bothered arguing.

This is a great thing if they did stop it lol ...no more "Heavy Luggage" label on our suitcase and save doing my back in while lifting the heavy suitcase into a taxi.

Edited March 24, 20179 yr by Youbloodybeauty

32 minutes ago, petedk said:

 

Expect longer waits for your luggage to arrive.

Yes, but then again it would just be an adjustment to the slow/longer immigration procedures, hehe ... 

 
Expect longer waits for your luggage to arrive.

More chances for the baggage handlers to do their own particular "scanning"?

First you get rid of Samarn, then hike excise through the roof, now prevent imports .. where can I buy stocks of local laukhao distilleries? Must've been some real nice and fat brown envelopes.

Why is the headline picture of a check in desk, when the article is about arrivals..........Sorry,  just having a pedantic day ....

It will be too  much of an effort to man them..........

They have the capacity to scan limited luggage now but you never see it happening.  The customs officials look sleepier and more disinterested than the immigration officers.  Ive been through 100s of times and not once scanned.

17 minutes ago, Jimbo2014 said:

They have the capacity to scan limited luggage now but you never see it happening.  The customs officials look sleepier and more disinterested than the immigration officers.  Ive been through 100s of times and not once scanned.

I've been scanned and questioned and many times i've seen them inspecting opened suitcases from other travellers.

 

Also i've seen them calling back other travellers who already passed the x-raymachine and officers...

8 minutes ago, fruitman said:

I've been scanned and questioned and many times i've seen them inspecting opened suitcases from other travellers.

 

Also i've seen them calling back other travellers who already passed the x-raymachine and officers...

Maybe I just have an honest face 

1 hour ago, AhFarangJa said:

It will be too  much of an effort to man them..........

Sexist comment.... they will use women!!!

2 hours ago, madmitch said:

They've had luggage scanners on arrival at Phuket since the new terminal opened and most bags are scrutinised.

 

The good news is that I have got away with teabags, cheese, chocolate bars and lots more on two occasions. I would hope they have more important items to look for, such as rhino horns, elephant tusks and drugs.

 

 

T-bag smuggler eh?... and chocolate! 

You really are a naughty one, and to openly admit it shows you have no remorse. Shocking!

Just assemble a big metal box, glue a monitor to it and put some fancy looking old pc motherboards into the box, install some old conveyor rolls found in a junk yard and sell it to the Thais, nobody will ever know.....

And when someone complains the machine doesn't work, just tell them they didn't follow the manual correctly and the warranty is void.... 

Edited March 24, 20179 yr by AlQaholic

3 hours ago, LazySlipper said:

I think they forgot to mention that they just adapted those forgotten bomb detectors they bought many years ago for millions of baht and how they found a way to put them in a box to detect everything under the sun... and now they call it an x-ray machine... ooopsss

 

 

nonono.....those detectors works just fine!

1 hour ago, AhFarangJa said:

Why is the headline picture of a check in desk, when the article is about arrivals..........Sorry,  just having a pedantic day ....

Nok paid a lot of money for that picture........

2 hours ago, fruitman said:

Yup, i won't bring anymore cheese...i don't want to be the one who pays for these machines. 

 

If they were serious in finding bombs or chemicals they would order snifferdogs. 

Dogs are exported to Cambodia.

Why not spend the money on benchmarking Thai immigration process to Singapore's Immigration process if you want more happier visitors?

It seems there will be no problem with increased queue lengths as there wil be less people coming as they are sick of the delays already.  Now if that was for leaving understandable as security on flights is a problem though less risky than the busses.