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Advance Passenger Processing System to be Installed in all Thai Airports
1st Oct 2012
All airports in Thailand, including the Phuket International Airport, will soon have a new and more efficient automated system as announced recently by the Commissioner of the Thai Immigration Bureau. Once installed, international passengers will no longer have to experience tedious long queues to get their documents processed by immigration officials.
The announcement came during the regional meeting of ASEAN immigration heads held at a 5-star resort hotel in Phuket yesterday. The new system, according to Lt. Gen. Wiboon Bangphamai, is dubbed as 'Advance Passenger Processing' system or simply called APP.
The state-of-the-art technology is so advanced that it allows passengers to simply walk through without them needing to stop to get their passports stamped by an immigration officer.
The traveling public will have to wait a little bit longer, however, as they need to iron out some issues with the Airports of Thailand officials for its installation. Issues include a usage fee which is to be shouldered by the passengers themselves.
An original proposal was submitted to the airport officials seeking to impose a fee of 80 baht for every passenger but that was denied. At present, the immigration agency is awaiting action from the AoT officials for a lower fee of 40 baht per passenger, amending the original proposal.
Immigration officers manning the system will also use it to detect a departing passenger if his or her name appears on the Thai Immigration blacklist. Once detected, the officer shall then alert the Thai police to carry out necessary actions against the subject.
Other issues discussed during the convention include, among others, expedite immigration processes, improve their monitoring system against terrorism and human trafficking syndicates and encourage people from ASEAN-member countries to travel within the region to drum up each others' tourism market.
The common market, ASEAN Economic Community (AEC), which is patterned after the Europe's EEC, is expected to take off in 2015. By then all member countries shall be able to travel within the region with relative ease. This would mean a more intensive drive to exchange vital information among immigration officials from each of the member nations.
Thailand will need to develop an efficient system in anticipation of this event when intra-ASEAN travel is expected to grow by leaps and bounds as immigration restrictions will be relaxed. Thailand is expected to continue to draw more intra-ASEAN visitors. The immigration official added that as the intra-ASEAN travel takes off by then, more people will crisscross the region that it would be hard for our current system to meet their goals.
He said that the Thai Immigration office won't leave anything to chance when it comes to the security and safety of the nation and the traveling public.
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