An automatic passport screening system starts at Suvarnabhumi airport next month, which could help shorten delays at immigration.
Smoother passage: The Immigration Bureau will deploy auto-gates for Thai passport screening starting on April 11. PHOTO COURTESY OF POL MAJ GEN NATHATHORN PROUSOONTORN.
The system, known as auto-gates, will do away with manual passport checks for all departing and arriving Thai passport holders, tentatively commencing on April 11.
The installation of the 16 auto-gates, split equally between the departure area and arrival halls, promises to speed up the clearance of Thai passengers.
That will allow the Immigration Bureau to shift manpower to deal with heavier traffic on the foreign passport sections, where passengers have complained of waiting for up to two hours or more.
"Auto-gates will help relieve some traffic but will not entirely solve the problems associated with long immigration lines," Pol Maj Gen Natthorn Phrosunthorn, head of Suvarnabhumi airport immigration, said.
That is because the fundamental problems _ lack of staff, and fast-growing passenger traffic through the already congested airport _ have yet to be addressed.
An auto-gate can process a passenger's passport in 16 seconds, compared to an average of 45 seconds if it is handled manually once the passport is presented to the immigration officer at his counter. The bureau screens between 20,000-30,000 Thai passports a day at Suvarnabhumi, and those numbers represent about 20% of total passports it handles daily.
The bureau's staff can cope with around 80,000 passengers a day but the number of passengers passing through the airport now exceeds 100,000 a day.
It has 1,045 immigration officers working, after 267 officers were promoted or transferred to work elsewhere.
The airport has 124 counters at the arrival area and 80 in the departure hall. Only 60% of those counters are operational, as the service lacks the staff to man them all.
Pol Maj Gen Natthorn said the bureau has asked for 355 additional officers to deal with the rising workload.
The Royal Thai Police, which is considering the request, has agreed to send a contingent of 70 female police officers from the so-called "Kong Roi Nam Waan" (Sweet Company) to help relieve the workload.
The bureau will start training them tomorrow.
During the initial introduction of auto-gates, assistants will guide Thai passport holders on how to have their travel documents processed.
The machine will verify whether the passport is authorised by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The passenger then moves to a second machine to verify his identity, by matching the identity data in the passport with a finger scan.
Meanwhile, the police and the Tourism Ministry yesterday advocated dividing immigration queues by colour coding the lines in accordance with boarding times _ red lines for flights departing in less than one hour, yellow in two hours and green in three hours or more.
They also proposed Thai passport holders should not be required to fill out immigration forms at international Thai airports.
Form-filling has added to immigration delays at the airport.