dsquared37

That was at DMK. While I've seen some big lines at BKK, more recently I've been arriving at 3PM and the lines back up to the concourse, probably an hour at most.

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/thail...ast-track.html

The last wiki entry for NH J arrival was a year ago. Please update accordingly.

transpac

On the recent immigration fiascoes at DMK, the lack of bathrooms in the immigration hall(s), and the long lines, have led to "slippery spots" on the floor. Flooding everywhere.

I guess the wait-times approached 5 hours late Friday evening, into Saturday morning.

ftrichard

I was there. I was there. And the Skytrax review mentioned in the link is mine.

It was indeed an absolute disgrace on Friday night at immigration in DMK. It took me 3 hours and 20 minutes to get through and that was only because I was being, shall we say, persistent in claiming my inches of space as the unmanaged mass of people shuffled forward.

I've arrived at DMK around this time many times on a Friday before over the last five years. This time from HK on Air Asia that is now taking to park away from the terminal and use buses. No matter, upon reaching the immigration area there were thousands of people massed. I was there in June at the same time and it was bad - about an hour to get through - but this was unbelievable.

There's no queuing system at all. Just a hall of people shuffling forward. As you get within about a meter of the front you can work out how to get into one of the actual queues. I was lucky and was already in approximately the right place. The counters were slow. Taking minutes to process most passengers. Most people were from PRC and seemed to be in tour groups. I don't know if they have different visa requirements but the counter staff were taking their time to process them.

I took a picture of the arrivals board and there were flights at 10pm and 10.05pm and then nothing until 11.20, 11.35, 11.55, 12.05 and that was it before my late flight arrived at 12.20. Actually the 11.20 was supposed to be me so that was just five flights in the two hours before I arrived. So what gives?

Some seriously delayed flights from China from earlier in the day clearly. Four or five 747s by the looks of it.

I am back on this same flight in four weeks. I will be writing to Air Asia about this situation and what they're doing about it because if they don't fix it then I and many others will never use this airport or carrier again no matter the schedule or price. DMK is just not worth it.

On a brighter note, I am now in the brand new Coral Lounge at the same terminal flying back to Shenzhen and it's great. Good food selection and wine. Nice view of the runaway and some piers. Priority Pass people should be happy.

CJKatl

So sorry you were stuck, but thank you for posting. Glad you are now able to enjoy your trip. I usually fly through DMK to other Asian locations, having been in the Air Asia basement and buses many times, but it sounds like for now, paying a few baht more to fly out of BKK might make sense.

transpac

More news, evidently the issue Friday evening/Saturday morning was due to the late arrival 4 or 5 large aircraft...

There were supposed to be 21 flights landing at Don Mueang between midnight on Friday and 5am on Saturday morning. However, four additional flights from Hong Kong and Singapore and a charter flight from China arrived during the same time although they were supposed to have landed earlier, according to Suthirawat Suwanawat, general manager of Don Mueang Airport.

About 5,000 passengers therefore arrived at about the same time, he said, adding that immigration checkpoints at Don Mueang had the capacity to process 1,000 visitors per hour.

http://www.nationmultimedia.com/deta...ional/30322994



However, there still may be some fundamental issues, which admittedly have popped up a few times over the past ~ 10 years: a lack of IOs.

Don Mueang queues due to 'staff shortage'

Immigration Bureau Chief Nathathorn Prousoontorn admitted Sunday that a staff shortage was behind the hours-long wait for foreigners entering Thailand through Don Mueang International Airport on Saturday. Pol...

http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/gene...staff-shortage

ftrichard

Got to love bureaucrats and their blatant lies:

"The Immigration Bureau apparently only realised something was wrong after Thammasat University law lecturer Piyabutr Saengkanokkul posted on Facebook."

I arrived there at 12.20am and the seething mass was already backed up into the corridor leading to the immigration hall. The IB knew there was something wrong all night not four hours into it when the FaceBook post was made.

The IB was deliberately making the situation worse by (a) taking minutes with each PRC passenger (I timed them - others like myself got our dubious white privilege pass and were processed straightforwardly in seconds) and (b) not opening up additional lanes such as the manned crew/priority lanes to other passengers.

And the problem was not because of 21 flights arriving after midnight. It was a backlog that was already there at midnight that didn't clear. The additional scheduled planes just topped up the terrible situation that was there already.

Adding more counters will not solve the problem when (1) existing counters are not manned and (2) there's no queuing system. The lack of a queuing system at DMK was the most frustrating aspect of this experience because nobody could work out where they should be heading to. We just shuffled forward like a zombie horde.

Earlier in the evening I went through three e-channels out of China and into HK by land and out of HK at the airport. The transaction takes 10-15 seconds (I've timed the gap between gates opening per passenger). I had remarked on FaceBook that e-channels and online check-in have contributed greatly to my quality of life. Clearly, I was asking for trouble...

dsquared37

The second point is totally valid and BKK went through this scenario a few years back.

As for the first I've commented before, somewhere in this forum in one of the many threads dealing with immigration, that my decision tree on which lane to stand in factors in Chinese nationals. At BKK they usually take a minute or more per passport compared to 30s or less with many other passports.

Something in the system requires a more time consuming process for PRC passports.

transpac

The IB was deliberately making the situation worse by (a) taking minutes with each PRC passenger (I timed them - others like myself got our dubious white privilege pass and were processed straightforwardly in seconds) and (b) not opening up additional lanes such as the manned crew/priority lanes to other passengers.


China is one of ~ 19 countries which require a "Visa on Arrival", which requires a separate sort of process. And they only get 15 days, so the IO needs to have a separate stamp, or rejigger their current stamp between 15, 30 (and even 90, or whenever the current visa might expire).


There do seem to be a lot of Chinese tourists here right now.

ftrichard

This may explain why there were so many people backed up when the arrivals board shows only five other flights in the preceding two hours. The Visa on Arrival desk is just before immigration and presumably these poor people had to queue first to get their Visas before moving on to the scrum at immigration which means they'd already been there for hours and hours and hours. Only Chinese with their experience of horrendous delays at Chinese airports would be able to tolerate this as being in some way normal. The immigration officers were also rejecting about 15-20% of Chinese first time because of immigration form irregularities which isn't surprising given that it's in Thai and English (even the arrivals board is in Thai, English and Chinese). So there was a small crowd of people at each desk trying to get a friend to assist them filling in the form correctly that didn't help.

@dsquared37: even your decision tree would have failed on this occasion as there was no queuing system and no possibility to make a strategic decision. Just a sea of people that I moved through like a stone through toffee.

dsquared37

Oh, I realize that. But I still like your simile.

My point was solely that whenever possible being behind Chinese nationals is something to avoid. In this instance clearly that was not an option.

transpac

The national police chief (and top man at immigration) last week ordered all immigration workers currently "in service to their superiors" - this means as private servants in their homes as is common with the police and military, back to their "real" jobs.


200 more immigration officials deployed at Don Mueang and Suvarnabhumi airports

About 200 immigration officials from immigration offices throughout the country have been mobilized and deployed at the Suvarnabhumi and Don Mueang airports to cope with increasing number of arrivals.

Hundreds of arriving passengers were held up for more than four hours at the immigration checkpoints at Don Mueang airport in the last couple of days due to shortage of immigration officials to cope with a surge of arrivals.

Pol Maj-Gen Sitthichai Lokanpai, commander of Second Division of the Immigration Bureau, inspected immigration officials performing their duty at Don Mueang airport on Saturday night (Aug 12).

http://englishnews.thaipbs.or.th/200...humi-airports/

ftrichard

I'm going to be back there on Friday 1 September :-(. Same Air Asia flight from HK.

That will be exactly four weeks since my last terrible experience. I will report back here how it is and whether there is any improvement.

ftrichard

Any more data points from DMK followers in Bangkok about the late night immigration issues? Have they improved? I'll be back on Friday 1st September on Air Asia from HK and if there's any risk of it being like the "Black Hole of Calcutta" experience last time then I'll try to find a Fast Track service which will be worth every cent. Anyone know of a DMK Fast Track service?

ftrichard

Regular readers will know that I was one of the unlucky caught in the notorious immigration snafu at DMK last month which made the Bangkok Post.

Today I got the same Air Asia flight from HK arriving delayed slightly later.

I attach pictures to show the transformation.

Immediately you see they've put queueing lanes out. These are brand new. Shiny. Gleaming. The lanes have time estimates. 1 hour. 30 minutes etc.

Then you see there are no queues. I had one person in front of me at the desk. The desk then took about 30 seconds to process me.

Somebody's butt has been kicked and it has worked.

From touchdown to taxi took about 10 minutes total.

seanthepilot

Unfortunately, this is an ongoing issue. Many think it's a funding strategy. Understaff, wait for outcry, more funds flow in to hire more bodies,M the usual graft goes on... rinse & repeat!

It'd be great if the issue was solved for good. But, I'll bet that we'll see this again in 9-18 months.

If nothing changes, nothing changes.