travelled through there last week and just thought Id flag up what seems to be a throughput problem at the immigration desks...dont know if this is just a bad day or ongoing but.....
check-in was fine, but immigration was madness...about 5 desks open trying to process 1000 passengers....took about an hour to get through immigration.
So its probably a good idea to turn up well early...I usually give myself an hour or so to sit and have a coffee...only just made the flight.
Baggage scanning.....seems most passengers get funneled up onto floor 3 to cue again for ages....take a tip. Get the lift or stairs down one floor and there are more scanners down on floor 2 with no cues.
"Science flew men to the moon. Religion flew men into buildings."
By a bizarre coincidence I actually read Sandman’s post on my telephone whilst standing in a queue for immigration that was going out into the check-in hall. This was early on Saturday morning so perhaps they have a staffing problem at this time. By the time I got through, in just under an hour, the situation had improved.
I've heard that the 'staffing' problem is that a lot of the immigration personnel and baggage handlers were not 'compensated' for the move from Don Muang to Swampipoom - hence the problems.
Not sure if true but would explain some of the delays.
From news reports Terry its not just the baggage handling at T5. Apparently staff weren't familiar with the layout of the terminal, and there isn't enough car parking space for the staff either. So on day one many were late. Other problems included ATMs not working.
After other debacles like the Wembley Stadium its starting to make the UK look even dafter than it really is!
Paris, Charles de Gaulle takes a lot of beating; it’s been open over thirty years and they still manage to loose your baggage. The last time it happened to me it took them three days to find it.
Air France doesn’t help matters by selling you tickets for transit at CDG that are impossible to make in the time allowed. You often have to exit one terminal and walk about two miles to another, but still get to the check-in 45 minutes before the flight or they won’t let you on!
I was right at the back in one of about 4 long lines at the departure section at Swampi thinking that we were going to be there forever when an official came over and pulled a few of us out of the lines and sent us to the empty Thai passpot holders area. She said as we were all wearing the commerative yellow shirts we were ''special visitors".
Also remember that if you are travelling with a Thai that you can both go through the Thai line - reason, because you are travelling together. I have done this with my wife and child both in and out of Swampy.
It has just occurred to me that when I flew in about a month ago there were more desks at arrivals than there used to be, so perhaps they have staffed these by reducing the departures side. I really can’t imagine why you would do that; perhaps they make more money on arrivals.
Terry wrote:Seems to me that ALL new airports or terminals suffer from baggage delays when opening.
Hong Kong, K.L., Swampipoom and now T5
Really don't understand it - surely these systems should be tested to overload before opening
Maybe a better idea is to ban all baggage - passengers too - the airports would run smoothly then
I worked on testing a fully integrated conveyor system for over 6 months. The manufacturer at that time stated that despite any amount of testing, the real problems would never be discovered until live running.
He said the first day would be a complete washout. The first week would be disasterous, and things would only improve after that - How right he was.
Apparently all such conveyor systems take 6 months of live running to fully bed in. We're now 8 years on from my testing, and I think I can safely say that no real problems have been experienced in the last 7.5.
