Immigration readies for influx of visitors over Chinese New Year
The Royal Thai Police Immigration Bureau is readying measures and officials to facilitate increasing foreign arrivals during Chinese New Year and promising that there will be no repeat of last month’s system breakdown at Suvarnabhumi Airport.
On January 24, Airports of Thailand (AOT) Plc rushed to deploy extra officials to clear long lines of passengers at Suvarnabhumi Airport after a technical breakdown at the automatic biometrics immigration checking kiosks. Officials had to manually check passenger’s travel documents, causing long queues to form.
Immigration Bureau chief Pol Maj Gen Ittiphol Itthisarnronnchai on Tuesday headed a meeting with officials to discuss safety measures at the airport during February 8 to 14, when he estimated some 80,000 passengers will land per day to celebrate Chinese New Year on February 10 in Thailand.
He said additional immigration police officers will be deployed to help direct passengers to kiosks during peak hours to minimise crowding. The bureau set a target of diverting passengers out of the waiting area in less than 30 minutes.
Ittiphol added that the bureau has been working with AOT to prevent a system breakdown at automatic passport kiosks, and has received confirmation from the contractor that the error will not happen again.
Ittiphol said technicians from MSC Sittipol Ltd, who installed the biometric system, have inspected the system and said the problem was caused by networking equipment. They ensured that faulty components have been replaced and the whole system has been updated to be able to work as usual even when offline.
Officials from Immigration Operation Centre will stand by at these kiosks anyway in case of a system malfunction, Ittiphol said.
The bureau chief will check the readiness of officials and the immigration system at Phuket and Chiang Mai airports from Thursday to Friday, as the two provinces are also popular destinations during Chinese New Year.
