newshound

I have been tipped off about these guys...

http://www.thailongstay.co.th/

I have a colleague that swears by them and is having his secretary sign me up. I will report back with my findings but on the face of it you are essentially buying 12 months of meet and greet with fast track (going both ways) for 12k baht or make that 20k with the buggy.

Anyone else have one of these cards?

planr

Anyone aware of a thread on FT (or elsewhere) that is actively tracking the progress of the US "application." Supposedly it was filed in 9/2007 and was expecting to take 3 years to clear...

A_Lee

Based on what I've seen and what others have reported, it does seem to me that the queues are worse now than in the past few years. However, I do have a theory about why this is.

I haven't seen any reports of actual passenger numbers, but given various events (political uprisings, swine flu, etc.) in the past couple years which likely kept some people away, vs. no such events this season, I'd assume that passenger numbers are up.

A year ago, during the combination of Chinese New Year, Valentine's Day, and the weekend, I went through the outbound queues at BKK, and nothing particularly unusual until getting past the immigration officer where the madhouse began. It was a few months prior to that when the security checkpoints were moved from just before the gates, to after immigration. The security checkpoints simply cannot handle peak times. There doesn't really seem to be anymore space either to put in any additional scanners. Simply put, a bad design due to the security checkpoints being placed in a location that wasn't intended when the airport was designed.

Last year at that time, I was very aggressive in getting through the queue, but I could see someone stuck over on the side and not being aggressive taking hours to get through. The situation was simply totally unacceptable. So I'm guessing that the airport officials realized this and adjusted how passengers are processed to avoid this. Rather than process as many as possible at immigration, it makes much more sense to control the flow of people passing through immigration to avoid the madhouse at security that I saw. Much better than people are waiting in organized queues than in a total free-for-all. So anyone waiting in these queues and looking at the empty immigration desks, don't blame immigration for this problem. It's way better they regulate the flow by not opening up all the desks.

Having these long delays isn't really acceptable. So this begs the question, what to do about this? I can readily see two solutions:

A) Change the security checkpoints back to where they were before. This though of course would cause lots of whining again from those who did it before. Not only that, but this "solution" only addresses outbound queues, not inbound nor other problems.

B) Reduce the number of passengers at BKK. The only real way I can think of to do this immediately, that would make any sense, would be to designate DMK as both the domestic and international low cost carrier airport. Force Air Asia and any other LCC's out of BKK. Likely all overcrowding problems in outbound immigration, inbound immigration, and the departure check-in hall would be immediately reduced if not eliminated.

On my last trip through BKK last week, I had a B Concourse departure for an international flight. This is new AFAIK, the result of the construction that's been going on there over the past few months. I didn't have time to look over the situation and see if they're using the B Concourse for domestic as well, but I'd think that would be hard to do. So apparently BKK is already starting to show signs of not being able to handle the passenger loads, and this situation will likely only get worse and worse as time goes by.

So really, option B, offloading passengers to DMK, is the only solution that I can see that makes a whole lot of sense. That, combined with the immediate start of construction of a LCC terminal at BKK, as well as the immediate start of construction of whatever the next phase of BKK is that's already been planned. (Hopefully there is some logical plan for this already in existence).

In assuming that domestic flights are now restricted to only the A Concourse, this must be creating problems for overcrowding at domestic gates. Forcing Air Asia to use DMK would provide immediate relief here as well. Hopefully any future expansion plans would let TG, both domestic and international to remain at the current terminal, as well as all *A carriers. The LCC terminal for Air Asia, Nok Air, etc. whether international or domestic, and a new terminal for offloading some of the remaining international carriers.

Hopefully the airport officials are watching how woefully inadequate BKK is right now during it's peak and start to take immediate action. If not, it's going to be a nightmare come the next peak season.

WLG Base

olivier

How long did it actually take to get through immigration / security with that long queues?

planr

Thanks for the effort WLG, but I'm looking for something a little bit more updated than the top Google hit, which hasn't change in at least a year, IIRC.

bertheike

In the past 6 years I travelled aprox 10 times per year into BKK, never queued longer than 5 minutes. Even last week coming back from KTM ( visarun ) we only had 1 person in front of us. Of course only flying TG or *aliance premium class, so can use one of the 4 counters right side.

yosithezet

When I left Sunday evening at 4PM or so I noticed that they did away with the snake line in the immigration area around the W counters and the lines were at most 7 deep. This is in stark contrast to what I experienced a month ago at 10:30PM when the lines were not just to the back wall but outside the immigration area. They also seem to have done away with the Thai-only second they'd cordoned off for Thai laborers.

hifirob

Quick couple of questions on this - is this international or domestic or both? Reason I ask is I arrive into BKK next Thursday from LHR. Obviously don't want to queue too long after the flight, but do they have a "fast track" service for Business class - this is my third trip in three years, but in the past I've flown straight on down to Phuket. This time I'm stopping in Bangkok for a few days before heading off, so have never actually had the delight of arriving in Bangkok's new airport (though I have been to Bangkok a couple of times before using Don Muang).
Second question relates to security for Domestic. In Bangkok I'm meeting up with my girlfriend, who's on a r-t-w trip. We're both going onto Phuket, but for various reasons I'm on Thai and she's on Air Asia, but both flights at same time, around 12.30. We had planned to get to the airport an hour before, but is this enough time, with the security problems? I've also got the slightly embarrasing situation that I'm in Business to Phuket, so will be heading off to the Business class check-in......

Cheers

TandJalliance

We arrived from PEK and than onto HKT (C class) all on Thai in mid January. There were only two officers open and the lines were long and slow. Just made our connection onward!! We had 90 minutes and used all of it in line. No lounge time.

dsquared37

This is a discussion on immigration. Care to elaborate on the meaning of your question?

I'm not aware of any security problems per se. As above, care to elaborate on this question?

Air Asia can have some rather long lines at certain times of the day. If possible check all the bags on your TG C ticket and web checkin/kiosk, whatever means there is for her to avoid the long lines.

jiejie

That is very bizarre if you were on TG 615 unless it arrived in BKK quite a bit later than scheduled (sometimes the case due to leaving PEK late). If a normal arrival time (about 21:20-21:30), the immigration lines at BKK are usually in a "lull" period between early evening and late evening arrivals, and thus very short. My experience on this flight on January 23 was on-time arrival and immigration taking only a few minutes (in Y but sitting at front of cabin), foreigner lines at central immigration area only 4-5 people deep. Only two officers sounds unusually sparse though, that's a big part of the problem. *shakes head in wonder at Thailand operations...*

But why didn't you use Fasttrack if you were in C?

yosithezet

I've never gotten fast track passes upon arrival at BKK.

pansted00

TG makes onboard announcemenst that C class passengers are entitled to Fast Track immigration at BKK, and they now say that the appropriate immigration counters are located opposite Gate D4.
There is also a TG sign board right next to these immigration counters showing precisely the same.
The problem is that the Immigration officers often refuse C class passengers claiming it is only for F class ...

fumitani

I flew domestic so....i can't comment.

OTOH Feb 6th at 9:30pm the lines were no longer than 5 people per line.

Thai citizens had nobody. ^