Phuket Airport turns to ‘X-Terminal’ to reduce queues

The X-Terminal opened on Feb 5, 2014 and was built at a cost of B151 million to expressly serve tourists arriving and departing on charter flights. (See story here.)

“We are now using the terminal as an extra check-in point to solve long queues for charter flights for the Chinese New Year holidays,” Phuket International Airport Director Monrudee Gettuphan told The Phuket News.

The outbound international tourist to benefit from the X-terminal check-in were 336 passengers on board Azur Air Flight ZF7732 from Phuket to Moscow, which took off at 1:45 pm yesterday (Jan 31).

“After the passengers had checked-in at X-Terminal, they and their luggage were transferred to the International Terminal by bus,” Ms Monrudee explained.

“We will continue to do this for a while, especially as more large numbers of Chinese tourists are expected to come to Phuket in February,” she said.

The move to use the X-Terminal also came in response to Transport Minister Lt Gen Arkhom on Jan 22 ordering urgent action be taken to alleviate the long queues of tourists waiting to be cleared through the airport, Ms Monrudee explained.

Gen Arkhom said he had also ordered Airports of Thailand (AoT), which operates six international airports in the Kingdom, including Phuket Airport, to ramp up efforts to have the luggage conveyor x-ray machines inside the brand-new facility up and running to reduce the notoriously long queues. (See story here.)