Thai airports intensify security measures

BANGKOK, July 20 (TNA) - Thai airports, especially the main Suvarnabhumi International Airport and Don Mueang Airport, have stepped up security measures, including intensified searches on air passengers, to meet the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO)'s standard as of July 17, 2015. As passenger traffic at Bangkok's Don Mueang Airport has been slowed down ever since, Airports of Thailand Public Company Limited (AOT) explained on Monday that the luggage X-ray process at Don Mueang Airport has been adjusted to meet the ICAO's standard. AOT President Nitinai Sirismatthakarn told journalists that all bags of outbound passengers must now be X-rayed right before they reach check-in rows. The AOT president admitted that the intensified security measure has caused heavy congestion, advising passengers to reach airports two hours and a half, instead of one hour, before domestic flights and three hours and a half, instead of two hours, before international flights. According to the AOT chief, the Department of Civil Aviation (DCA), under the Thai Ministry of Transport, has ordered the additional X-ray checkpoints to meet the ICAO's standard. Earlier, passengers at Thai airports had been allowed to tow their X-rayed bags by themselves to check-in rows and on the way a dangerous object could be put into luggage. To immediately cope with the congestion, the AOT president noted, AOT has deployed more officials to facilitate passengers and it will, in the middle term, improve queuing systems and, in the long term, acquire more X-ray machines to solve the problem. (TNA)