80. Confusion for Airport Pick-up: Domestic vs International Terminal

At Chiangmai Airport, the various hotel representatives await for their guests at the different gates, depending on the information featured on the arrival screen. Here, like in all other airports worldwide, there is a domestic and international terminal. In this case, these two terminals are at different ends of the same building complex.

When guests arrive on Thai Airways (or Thai Smile - a subsidiary of Thai Airways) via Bangkok -some passengers of the same flight may have their luggage coming out from the belt at domestic terminal while others will exit from the international terminal, depending on the original boarding point. 

In my case, I boarded my flight from Singapore, made a transit in Bangkok for two hours and continued my onwards journey to Chiangmai and had to retrieve my checked-in luggage from the Domestic Terminal. Strangely, on another occasion, I took the same route and my bags came through International Terminal.

When the hotel guests indicate their arrival flight as "TG 123", the property will simply check for the gate number on screen and arrange for its airport representative to await right outside the indicated gate, even though some of the guests may exit from the other end of the building. It's all very confusing.This means having a 50-50 chance that the arriving guests will not be met on time when they exit from the gate.

When I asked one of the drivers how they manage such a situation, he said if there was just one airport representative, they would wait at one terminal until most guests have exited before dashing about 300m across to the other gate to see if some of them were waiting over there. Mmm, just imagine the back and fro...

The hotels should take an upstream approach in finding out the root causes and work on preventive solutions, rather than take an uncalculated risk each time that all the guests on board the Thai Smile flight would arrive in the same terminal.

Why make both the employees and guests go through all the unnecessary stress and potential discontentment that may lead to further complaints?


Reflective thoughts: What actions can you think of to resolve this situation?

(Points of note: 1) There can only be one airport representative waiting; 2) Furthermore, even if the hotel had known the guest first boarded the flight from a foreign country, it does not necessarily mean that he/she will exit from international gate at Chiangmai Airport.)

Are you able to list at least one key issue or complaint in your business, whereby the attempt in tackling the subject matter had not been particularly upstream in approach?

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