PM makes another surprise visit to Suvarnabhumi
Prime Minister and Finance Minister Srettha Thavisin made a surprise visit to Suvarnabhumi Airport on the outskirts of Bangkok on Tuesday to check the airport’s readiness to serve the increased passenger traffic expected during the Songkran holidays.
This year’s Songkran Festival, the Thai traditional new year, runs from April 12 to 15, allowing Thais to travel to their hometowns for family reunions.
This is Srettha’s 3rd unannounced visit to Suvarnabhumi to see how various systems at the airport work in real time.
After the visit, the premier posted on X (formely Twitter) that most of the airport services had improved since his last visit, including traffic flow at the airport’s entrance and exit, passenger check-in kiosks, luggage inspection, immigration process, baggage carousel, customs checkpoints, and waiting areas for passengers and staffers between shifts.
“I have set an additional KPI (key performance indicator) for Suvarnabhumi Airport. The time needed to go from check-in to customs checkpoint for outgoing passengers, and from customs checkpoint to baggage claim for incoming passengers, must not exceed 45-60 minutes,” Srettha said.
He added that the AOT (Airports of Thailand) has increased the advance check-in period from 3 hours to 4 hours, added self check-in kiosks, and doubled the staffers on each shift to facilitate passenger flow.
“The AOT has promised that the self check-in system will not malfunction again,” said Srettha, referring to the incident in January when a technical breakdown at automatic biometrics immigration checking kiosks resulted in long lines at Suvarnabhumi’s passenger terminal.
“There are several areas that can be further improved,” said the PM. “I have ordered the immigration processes under AOT and the Immigration Bureau to be integrated into one system called ‘Thailand Immigration System’.”
The premier also urged airlines to use self check-in kiosks together with manual systems, as currently only 28 out of 117 airlines are utilising the automatic kiosks.
