Don Mueang Immigration spokesman on Friday delay debacle: We did all we could

[webfact]

Don Mueang Immigration spokesman on Friday delay debacle: We did all we could

 

Picture: Sanook

 

BANGKOK: -- A spokesman has said that immigration did all they could on Friday when thousands had to wait five hours to board flights at Don Mueang airport.

 

But Kritsana Pattanacharoen admitted it was not enough and immigration will need to look at staffing levels before high season begins.

 

Sanook quoted Kritsana as saying that problems started to mount on Friday at 10pm after 13 flights were delayed.

 

Along with 12 other scheduled flights this meant that more than 9,000 passengers had to be processed on the 25 flights.

 

There were 15 immigration officers on duty and five more were assigned to help clear the backlog.

 

"We did our best," said Kritsana, "but it was not enough".

 

Sanook reported that immigration were looking at staffing needs and whether more officers were needed at the north Bangkok airport for the high tourist season beginning towards the end of the year.

 

Prior to the Don Mueang debacle airport officials were patting themselves on the back after a US website said that departure times of aircraft from Don Mueang were the fourth best in the Asia Pacific region.

 

Suvarnabhumi was named as tenth best.

 

Source: Sanook

 

-- © Copyright Thai Visa News 2017-08-08

[BasalBanality]

Airborne qualified immigration officer? Impressive.

[ezzra]

"We did all we could" is simply and clearly NOT GOOD ENOUGH, for a country 

that yearn and beg for tourists to come in, a lot more should be done to 

accommodate and prepare for any and all eventualities of passengers

arrivals, a contingency plans should have been in place to avoid a debacle

such as the one in DM few days ago.... 

[asiaexpat]

We came in at 8PM and the line for immigration was already down the hallway. It took more than an hour to clear immigration because immigration closed several desks and the people filtered into other lines. Also, only one desk had both sides open. No more DMK for me when traveling internationally. Combined with the delayed Airasia flight (both departing and returning) slow outbound immigration and unreasonably slow inbound immigration DMK is poor choice of airports. 

[ezflip]

38 minutes ago, webfact said:

Sanook quoted Kritsana as saying that problems started to mount on Friday at 10pm after 13 flights were delayed.

Didn't they just placed in the Top 10 of best airport for on-time flights? Expect more denials (excuses) to come soon.

[NCC1701A]

no mention of the people urinating on the floor while waiting for 4-5 hours because of no facilities in that area?

 

looking at the spokesman's medals, I think he is going to be awarded the "Don Mueang Airport Siege of 2017" medal for facing overwhelming odds such as lack of planning and an unwillingness to admit there is a problem.

 

[BasalBanality]

5 minutes ago, NCC1701A said:

no mention of the people urinating on the floor while waiting for 4-5 hours because of no facilities in that area?

 

looking at the spokesman's medals, I think he is going to be awarded the "Don Mueang Airport Siege of 2017" medal for facing overwhelming odds such as lack of planning and an unwillingness to admit there is a problem.

 

Probably the Golden Cock award.

[YetAnother]

1 hour ago, ezzra said:

prepare for any and all eventualities of passengers

arrivals, a contingency plans should have been in place to avoid a debacle

such as the one in DM few days ago.... 

hmmm; agree but doesnt work here; you are applying western thinking; reminds me of when i asked my thai wife (who has a 4 year undergrad degree) why she doesnt PLAN, she replied "i can't"

[darksidedog]

I am amazed he can stand there and say "We did our best." I mean seriously, that utterly piss (on the floor), poor performance was the best they could muster? That is a damning indictment on their inability to provide the level of service that travelers are entitled to expect. Peoples heads would roll if that happened in London. I also note that no apology was forthcoming.

Edited August 8, 2017 by darksidedog

[colinneil]

Yes they did all they could, blame everybody else for their own failings.

Clearly the airport immigration desks are overseen by idiots, who dont know what they are doing.

Flights land every day of every week, so it was not an unexpected rush of passengers, just a normal day, flights get delayed every day, but massive queues do not happen every day.

Person responsible for immigration officers shifts should be sacked, and replaced with a person with a brain.

[YetAnother]

on a different forum , there was a quote from an immigration official who said the immigration staffing has been cut 50% in the past few years; hmmm, tourism is way up, immigration staffing down, recent huge problem; think that was all linked ?

[Ricardo]

Part of the solution might be to introduce automated-desks, for arriving-travellers from certain countries who are seeking 30-day visa-exempt entry, if the authorities can only find some way to stamp the passports to show date/place-of-entry ?  If all else failed, a simple clerk, stamping the passports after people passed through automated-arrival ?

 

That would free-up the available trained Immigration-staff for those travellers who require more-complex consideration.

 

And surely it would be possible to automate exit-scanning & entry, for the vast majority of departing-travellers, those who are leaving within their permitted limit-of-stay ?

 

Whenever I leave Heathrow, I simply show my boarding-pass to a scanner, the rest is fully-automated, perhaps Thailand should copy this system ?

Edited August 8, 2017 by Ricardo

[Artisi]

12 minutes ago, YetAnother said:

on a different forum , there was a quote from an immigration official who said the immigration staffing has been cut 50% in the past few years; hmmm, tourism is way up, immigration staffing down, recent huge problem; think that was all linked ?

If thinking about daily staffing levels can't even be thought through why would the complex thinking behind the increasing number of tourists and future staffing levels ever enter the equation, neither would be considered connected.  

[Artisi]

17 minutes ago, Ricardo said:

Part of the solution might be to introduce automated-desks, for arriving-travellers from certain countries who are seeking 30-day visa-exempt entry, if the authorities can only find some way to stamp the passports to show date/place-of-entry ?  If all else failed, a simple clerk, stamping the passports after people passed through automated-arrival ?

 

That would free-up the available trained Immigration-staff for those travellers who require more-complex consideration.

 

And surely it would be possible to automate exit-scanning & entry, for the vast majority of departing-travellers, those who are leaving within their permitted limit-of-stay ?

 

Whenever I leave Heathrow, I simply show my boarding-pass to a scanner, the rest is fully-automated, perhaps Thailand should copy this system ?

What, copy farang system, farang doesn't understand  anything - it not work - Thailand different.

[DM07]

If THAT was the best you could do, you should resign from your job and Thailand should close down all immigration!

[seajae]

Lets be honest, they did their best to save as much money as possible and do as little as possible, they dont give a rats ar*e about the queues. Most of them are that slow it isnt funny, never yet seen them have all the booths manned during heavy periods of people. One time when it was very slow no one was waiting at all in front of me so instead of walking up and down several sets of lanes I ducked under the ropes to the counter and the idiot there told me to go back and walk the lanes, these people are totally hopeless. They have no work ethics at all, very rarely do you even get one that will smile and not give you dirty looks when you hand over your passport

[chuang]

Be humble learn from others eg Singapore, it too has delays occasionally but to wait 5 hours for immigration clearance , probably the govt has to close down the airport... 

[StayinThailand2much]

2 hours ago, YetAnother said:

hmmm; agree but doesnt work here; you are applying western thinking; reminds me of when i asked my thai wife (who has a 4 year undergrad degree) why she doesnt PLAN, she replied "i can't"

Mine would just ask: "Plan what??". (And she has a 4-year undergrad degree, too.)

 

In a related note, people in the West don't spend their last pennies as soon as they get them. My partner was asked a few years ago why I 'did not spend all my paycheck at once' - "...save money: save for what?"

 

Thais have no concept of planning ahead. Changes in schedules are told last minute, etc. Just as that 19-year old singer lamented on Twitter a few days ago: 'it will never change'... After 30-minutes of rain there will always be flooding and chaos, rather than planning and contingencies. More flights arriving: 'Oh, look more people - what to do??'.

[kkerry]

They need to move the management of DMK Immigration to a new office... preferably one with a large window overlooking the runway... seems the only way they will ever know when lots of planes are landing...

[Ricardo]

59 minutes ago, StayinThailand2much said:

 

In a related note, people in the West don't spend their last pennies as soon as they get them. My partner was asked a few years ago why I 'did not spend all my paycheck at once' - "...save money: save for what?"

 

 

Save for a rainy day  ...  we do get a few here, especially in monsoon-season !

[klauskunkel]

"We did our best," said Kritsana, "We blamed the airport administration, we blamed the weather, we blamed the delayed planes and their size, we blamed and blamed. What else do you want from us?"

[Prbkk]

3 hours ago, Artisi said:

What, copy farang system, farang doesn't understand  anything - it not work - Thailand different.

Yes and more significantly , an automated system doesn't involve thousands of acolytes and toadies all at the beck and call of the bigwigs. 

[Minnehaha]

9000 people on 25 flights is 360 per plane. 

Maybe.

Reports are there were a lot of people and 9000 would eadily fill that immigration room. But dont most airasia planes those A320 with 180 seats?

The math doesnt seem to work. 

If an immigration officer processes 1 person every 2 min then they can do 30 an hour. To do 9000 would take a lot of officials

[Baerboxer]

4 hours ago, YetAnother said:

hmmm; agree but doesnt work here; you are applying western thinking; reminds me of when i asked my thai wife (who has a 4 year undergrad degree) why she doesnt PLAN, she replied "i can't"

 

I asked my missus the same. She said we farang worry too much about the the future - which might never happen!

 

Apparently they learn in Buddhist teachings to think about now, the present. Not dwell in the past, which you can't change, nor anticipate the future which might to different to how you imagine.

 

That's fine, but learning from the past, or considering the future and preparing for eventualities - nah, too much like hard work. And she has a Master's in Education!

[Prbkk]

3 minutes ago, Baerboxer said:

 

I asked my missus the same. She said we farang worry too much about the the future - which might never happen!

 

Apparently they learn in Buddhist teachings to think about now, the present. Not dwell in the past, which you can't change, nor anticipate the future which might to different to how you imagine.

 

That's fine, but learning from the past, or considering the future and preparing for eventualities - nah, too much like hard work. And she has a Master's in Education!

Yes but they managed to plan the automated gates for Thai citizens; also manage to get the staffing levels right on the manned Thai citizens outbound booths ( meaning a Thai never waits more than 2 minutes in or out). Perhaps the cultural reluctance to plan only pertains to those areas affecting non-Thais?

[Baerboxer]

Just now, Prbkk said:

Yes but they managed to plan the automated gates for Thai citizens; also manage to get the staffing levels right on the manned Thai citizens outbound booths ( meaning a Thai never waits more than 2 minutes in or out). Perhaps the cultural reluctance to plan only pertains to those areas affecting non-Thais?

 

As with all things Thai - selectivity is a key ingredient. Besides, can't have Thai people inconvenienced or complaining. That just wouldn't do at all.

[madmitch]

Look at the guy's face. That's the face that greets so many tourists after their wait of a few hours.

 

"Welcome to the Land Of Smiles!" 

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

3 hours ago, YetAnother said:

on a different forum , there was a quote from an immigration official who said the immigration staffing has been cut 50% in the past few years; hmmm, tourism is way up, immigration staffing down, recent huge problem; think that was all linked ?

 

Perhaps the former officers there have all been transferred to the police's Facebook monitoring unit to keep on the prowl for bar maids offering beer promotions or people saying nasty things about the big cheese... 

[Juan B Tong]

Just lazy assessment civil servants who couldn't give a rats ass. 

[aslimversgwm]

2 hours ago, kkerry said:

They need to move the management of DMK Immigration to a new office... preferably one with a large window overlooking the runway... seems the only way they will ever know when lots of planes are landing...

Very funny Khun Kerry! Love it!!