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ResourcesVisa & Immigration LawThailand Immigration LawThai Immigration Authorities Take Measures to Decrease Processing Time of Incoming Travelers

Thai Immigration Authorities Take Measures to Decrease Processing Time of Incoming Travelers

Transcript of the above video:

In a previous video on this channel, we were discussing the fact that on multiple occasions not only at Don Mueang International Airport here in Bangkok but also at Suvarnabhumi International Airport, there were instances where four and five hour long wait were being reported there were sort of Twitter and the social media became a buzz here in Thailand with videos and photos from incoming travelers who were forced to wait in significantly longer lines at immigration and immigration checkpoints coming in at both of those airports.

As previously noted in that other video, I think that this is the result of more stringent enforcement protocols being enforced with respect to incoming immigrants. Also, they're now checking more and more for those who may have been previously blacklisted from coming into the Kingdom and I just think also what happened is it was a logistical issue. There was just a gap in planning and basically, they didn't really understand how many people were gonna be coming through at a given time and they simply didn't have the bonded officers on duty in order to process those folks as quickly as they usually do. And to be very clear, I noticed one comment on another sort of a forum that was talking about (might have been Thai visa forum) something like that, basically where somebody said “Hey you know, there are other countries that have significant wait times that are like this - three and four hours.” It's not uncommon to think you're going to be waiting at least an hour to get through an international immigration checkpoint and in my opinion, other than this sort of one blip on the radar quite frankly immigration at the airports does a pretty good job of getting people move through there.

Now they do use some protocols that might be considered a little bit antiquated with respect to you know, the stamp and paper system for visas and things. There are other countries that have not a more digitized system but it is my understanding that they are especially starting with Singaporean nationals. They are going to begin doing sort of more efficiently digitized admission for foreign nationals coming in the country. They just haven't fully got it implemented yet and keep in mind Thailand is a hub for thousands and thousands of entering foreign aliens every day. So you know, they've got a lot of work to do.

I'm not exactly being an apologist for them but I think it's worth noting in their defense that you know they have a lot to get done and sometimes yeah, the wheels do fall off the wagon occasionally. You know, things become get sort of clogged up but in a recent article that came out from Thai PBS, the Public Broadcasting Service here in Thailand noted Bangkok and it was the article is entitled “200 more immigration officials deployed at Don Muang and some wonderful airports.” Bank talked about 200 immigration officials from immigration offices throughout the country have been mobilized and deployed at the Suvarnabhumi airport and Don Mueang airports to cope with increasing numbers of arrival. This is as a result of it went all the way up to the Prime Minister's office here in the Kingdom that the, you know, this was an issue. People were complaining about it and as a result, they went ahead and mobilized 200 new officers from other areas. They re-tasked them and apparently have brought them down to in an effort to process incoming travelers at both of these airports. Since the time of that article, I have not seen or heard any articles or have not heard any anecdotes or anecdotal evidence to suggest that there's been anything but efficiently update deficiency being the order of the day out of that Airport, out of both of those airports. So it seems logical to refer that moving forward. They're going to go ahead and have the personnel necessary to go ahead and quickly and efficiently process travelers coming into the Kingdom.