Airports of Thailand Plc (AoT) can charge air passengers for advance passenger processing, under a Civil Aviation Board decision yesterday.
The AoT is expected to introduce the system this year and the board has capped the charge at 50 baht per passenger.
Voradej Harnprasert, director-general of the Department of Civil Aviation, said the AoT would install an advance passenger processing system (APPS) that would speed up immigration checks at the airport.
APPS will allow customs officials, airport and airline staff and immigration police to obtain the profiles of passengers from their countries of origin.
They will be able to check if passengers are blacklisted or banned from leaving a country. Authorities will share passenger information and ordinary passengers whose profiles are clean can pass immigration checks faster.
The Royal Thai Navy, which operates the U-tapao airport in Rayong, and Bangkok Airways which flies into various regional airports can seek permission from the Civil Aviation Board to charge the APPS fee.
The board is likely to approve their requests as well.
The fee will have a standard ceiling of 50 baht and be included in ticket prices.
AoT acting president Pongsak Semson said the AoT was looking for a suitable system and it would provide passengers' profiles upon their purchase of air tickets.
It will be applied to both arriving and departing passengers.
"The system is in use in many countries but not in Thailand. It will streamline immigration checks," Mr Pongsak said.