Airport arrival counters in Bangkok to be introduced after tourist increase

The Ministry of Transport intends to increase the number of immigration counters at Suvarnabhumi Airport in Bangkok following criticism after a sudden surge in the number of tourists arriving.

The Ministry of Transport decided to take action and address the issues faced by travellers at Suvarnabhumi Airport after a number of complaints.

More immigration counters will reduce crowding at the terminal and improve the overall experience for passengers. Additionally, steps will be taken to improve the efficiency of the taxi service counter and arrival check-in counter to reduce wait times. Finally, measures will be put in place to ensure that luggage is delivered to passengers in a timely manner and alleviate the frustration caused by delayed luggage.

Transport Minister Saksayam Chidchob visited Suvarnabhumi Airport yesterday to follow up on the improvement of those issues and investigate the availability of facilities at the airport.

After the fieldwork, Saksayam made known to the public that more arrival counters were needed as the document-checking process was still low due to the increasing number of travellers.

The minister said a small garden nearby the arrival counters would be transformed into 60 immigration counters which could serve 3,000 more travellers per hour. The construction process would take about six months to be completed. A start date has not yet been mentioned.

Saksayam reported that the Airport of Thailand would hire a supplier to operate one more baggage carousel from the former two lanes. Saksayam also added that the taxi service at the airport had increased to 3,800 cars per day.

The Transport Ministry also reported the air transport statistics at Suvarnabhumi Airport from January this year. On average, the airport handled 829 flights per day, 561 of which were international and 268 of which were domestic. The airport welcomed 138,287 passengers per day, 101,551 were international travellers and 36,736 were domestic travellers.

The ministry explained that the number of flights and passengers had rapidly increased compared to the same period last year. This was the result of the relaxation of Covid-19 measures and China reopening its border on January 8. The ministry believes that the number of travellers would increase in the second half of this year.