Immigration prepares for top-notch service

So far, at least 350 new positions have been approved for immigration workers at the old Bangkok airport and state-of-the-art technology will be used to help speed service to avoid congestion, said Pol Maj-General Nathathorn Prousoontorn, commander of Immigration Division 2 of the bureau.

He expects the number of immigration officers at Don Mueang should be 400 eventually. Currently, there are 26 arrival immigration gates and 34 departure gates at the airport. 

More than 2,000 immigration officers at the bureau work at five airports nationwide. 

What the bureau has done at Suvarnabhumi Airport will be similar at Don Mueang. In early stages, some experienced officers will be assigned to work at Don Mueang with new officers to keep operations smooth. The number of new officers to be assigned to the airport will depend on how busy it gets.

At the same time, he said, he had strengthened the service by keeping its focus on immigration tasks only. Currently staff spend time on policing tasks. For example, they have to help seize criminals and take them to police stations. The bureau may ask for other police officials to handle such duties instead.

At present, Nok Air and Orient Thai as well as charter flights use Don Mueang. On October 1, Thai AirAsia will relocate there from Suvarnabhumi. Airports of Thailand is also in talks with 14 other low-cost carriers on setting up operations there. 

Only Terminal 1 will be in operation and will accommodate 16.5 million passengers a year. Don Mueang, which was Bangkok’s only international airport before Suvarnabhumi opened in 2006, can accommodate 36.5 million passengers in all of its terminals, and Terminal 2 is being prepared if congestion gets bad. 

The growth of Thai AirAsia, for example, could strain the capacity of a single terminal. Currently, it operates 160 flights a day carrying an estimated 21,000 passengers, or 8 million a year. In four years, it expects to be carrying 16 million passengers annually. 

Nathathorn said the previous congestion at Suvarnabhumi had taught his bureau a lot about crisis management. It will have to work even harder to provide impressive service to foreign tourists. To accomplish this, complexities will be cut. For example, the time for issuing a visa on arrival has been slashed to five minutes from 10-15 minutes. 

Clearly, automatic passport-screening systems have cut down on manual work. So far, 16 such machines have screened more than 1 million passport holders, or 8,000-10,000 a day, since April 11, mainly Thais but also some foreigners such as regular flyers and permanent residents. Over the next four months, the bureau will also start using the Advance Passenger Processing system. APP will alert the bureau to unwanted passengers at point of departure. Then entry to the Kingdom will be rejected.