I don't normally comment about how airports are doing something right and I am especially critical of immigration departments all around the world, but I will give credit where credit is due in my recent trip from Da Nang to Bangkok to Phuket and how they are handling the passengers that are transitioning through to another city in Thailand once you arrive there.
First off I want to commend the Da Nang International airport for having some sort of really intelligent forward-thinking ideas as far as the creation of the international terminal is in the first place. They built this before the city was immensely popular and it is clear that they made it much larger than was needed at the time. It 's like they were aware of the fact that this city was going to be a popular international destination and well, it is definitely working out for them.
Any time I go to the Da Nang airport I do so with a sense of confidence that things are going to run smoothly and they always do. The above picture is the international departures terminal and at first glace it might just seem as though this is an unpopular airport and/or destination. That is not true at all. What has happened here is that the place is enormous and all the various halls such as immigration lines and security were built in a way to plan for expansion in the future. The "future" is now and still there is plenty of space for the demand now and many year into the distance.
While other airports that absolutely suck like LAX tell you to be there 4 hours before your departure, they do this mainly because of horrible design and things simply cannot move quickly.
Well done Da Nang for doing things correctly. Shame on you USA for claiming some sort of international supremacy whilst at the same time having what is recognized as being disastrous experiences from a travel experience.
Now on to what this article is really about.
Bangkok immigration can be a real nightmare because in the past they would have everyone, regardless of their final destination in the country, go through immigration in Bangkok. This resulted in long lines that never seem to move even though there would be 30 or so immigration officers working in every available booth.
They changed things in the past year and now, if your final destination is not Bangkok, you are directed towards a "fly through" area where the amount of immigration officers is apparently determined by how many tickets have been determined to be arriving from outside the country, but going to Phuket, not Bangkok, as was the case in my situation.
What I encountered is something you are not allowed to take photos of but just take my word for it. There was literally ONE person in front of me in the line to go through immigration because I guess there was only a handful of people on my flight from Vietnam that were carrying on to other places in Thailand other than Bangkok. A lone immigration official was at the booths and things went really fast. I think the immigration and security people were actually in much higher spirits than they normally would be as well because they were now not being faced with a massive mob of people that are arriving from all over the damn world.
This makes a lot of sense seeing as how the airport is extremely aware of what the final destinations of every single customer is. There is no real good reason to not be doing this.
I used to dread arriving at the Bangkok airports because not only is Thailand a very popular place to visit, but it is also a travel hub for all of south-east Asia. There would ALWAYS be long waits to get through to the other side and everyone was in a piss poor mood as well.
unrelated, but airport prices for drinks are just insane... no chance I am paying that
This time, the experience was, dare I say, quite nice! This is coming from a guy that absolutely hates airport travel too.
I hope that this is something that other countries will take note of because it is so much better of an experience for everyone involved in the process.