3 planes arrive in Phuket; 25 on 1st flight, 400 expected today

[Thaiger]

The first 3 flights have now arrived in Phuket for the Sandbox reopening, with details emerging from the first arrival this morning, an Etihad Airways flight from Abu Dhabi. A total of 25 passengers, down from yesterday’s estimate of 37, were the first to be welcomed back to Phuket with fanfare and celebration. A total of 400 international travellers are expected by the end of the day. Airports of Thailand officials followed an old tradition of spraying the first arriving flight of new service to an airport with a water cannon as a welcoming gesture. Not to be outdone, Etihad […]

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[farangatm]

WOW, amazing! 400 in a day who voluntarily submit to a draconian holiday with way more restrictions than freedom. Screw Thailand, today I got my EU Covidpass and can travel all over EU without any hassles. Spain next, booked today, 2 weeks, no tests, no face masks, no tracking devices and no forced stay in hotels.

Thailand, think again and do it right next time..

[King Cotton]

6 minutes ago, farangatm said:

WOW, amazing! 400 in a day who voluntarily submit to a draconian holiday with way more restrictions than freedom. Screw Thailand, today I got my EU Covidpass and can travel all over EU without any hassles. Spain next, booked today, 2 weeks, no tests, no face masks, no tracking devices and no forced stay in hotels.

Thailand, think again and do it right next time..

Fair comment, for sure and we do hope to hear from you from sunny (?) Spain!

 

Hello, farangatm and welcome to Thaiger Talk

Please feel free to tell us a bit about yourself in 'Introductions'. It's good to pick-up on those sometimes differing regional or geographical perspectives.

And check-out the Guidelines, too, when you get a free minute. They're there to help us all enjoy our time here.

Happy posting

King Cotton

[Paco]

Good luck but in Spain you do have to wear a mask, and it is not so funny  there either.. so good luck... I speak with my friend every week and ehat you say is nonsense regarding Spain no face mask etc.

[Paco]

Anyway plane companies only lose money on this

Edited July 1, 2021 by Paco

[Nipral]

have all passengers been tested for...sanity ?

You need to be particularly dum to spend time in Thailand, be it devastated Phuket, between July and...November.

[kmc]

Thought was supposed to be 1500?  They should poll the arrivals and see if they are tourists or have family there.

[Martin]

I'm not sure just a few hundred arrivals per day was what was originally hoped for by Thai authorities. I recall reading just a few months ago estimates of millions of tourists generating billions of baht.

The more likely reason why so few arrived today and will likely arrrive in a trickle over the next weeks is the poor way the sandbox was planned. Plus the lack of focus on the customer and only on how best to squeeze money from anyone who arrives. 

There is a base level below which a thing is unsustainable. Hopefully Phuket will ease up some of the excessive rules and it will be a success in time but its not looking promising. 

[Nipral]

Did anyone expect this bunch of incompetent military morons do anything right  ? Just yet another failure !!!

[EdwardV]

41 minutes ago, Martin said:

I'm not sure just a few hundred arrivals per day was what was originally hoped for by Thai authorities. I recall reading just a few months ago estimates of millions of tourists generating billions of baht.

 

 

The estimate of millions was for the entire country between now and the end of the year. it was originally 6M, than lowered to 4-5M, and then lowered again to 3M. The last change was to a range of  3M max with an expected total of just 1.4M and a minimum of 1M. The estimate for the Phuket sandbox alone was 129K over the next three months, but that's now been lowered to 1K. Even if you just use the last number, that's an average of about 1,100 per day.  

[satpete]

I send translation to German text,

if you need correct rules for Spain it has to be in Spanish,

so everyone can translate by Google,

communication here was still in English

this is in German for all who will know >>>

 

Die Balearen, die Kanaren und weite Teile des spanischen Festlands gelten nicht mehr als Risikogebiete. Was das für einen Spanien-Urlaub bedeutet.

Flugreisende aus Deutschland brauchen keinen Test- oder Impfnachweis

Generelle Maskenpflicht im Freien aufgehoben

you can translate by Google

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[satpete]

Phuket should be happy to have 1500  tourists or less arrive each day,

if there where 3000 to 5000 every day
I believe they cannot handle 10.000 to 15.000 PCR tests each day,
you have to stay in your hotel room until result comes 3 or 4 days later,
how much laboratories are valid at Phuket island for PCR tests
and how much tests they can handle in 24 hours ?

it will be nearly impossible !

 

did you really know how much PCR tests one laboratory can check in 24 hours ?

you will not believe !!!

 

Edited July 1, 2021 by satpete

[dimitri]

4 hours ago, farangatm said:

Spain next, booked today, 2 weeks, no tests, no face masks,

 

I am 100% sure that you have to wear a face mask in Spain, even outside on the street. Just like Thailand.

 

The only difference is that fines in Spain are a LOT higher than in Thailand.

 

[satpete]

nonsense, you may not live in Europe

 

spend 25 years holidays at Mallorca, Island of Spain,

and I will know  better than you

 

you can travel without jabs in Europe for holidays

Edited July 1, 2021 by satpete

[Martin]

1 hour ago, EdwardV said:

The estimate of millions was for the entire country between now and the end of the year. it was originally 6M, than lowered to 4-5M, and then lowered again to 3M. The last change was to a range of  3M max with an expected total of just 1.4M and a minimum of 1M. The estimate for the Phuket sandbox alone was 129K over the next three months, but that's now been lowered to 1K. Even if you just use the last number, that's an average of about 1,100 per 

I did seem to recall an earlier estimate just for Phuket of 600k for the 6 months July to December which would be a little over 3k every day. And even that was a lowering from previous estimates. 

But it's so easy to get befuddled with numbers as various authorities pump out differing numbers all the time. 

An earlier commenter on this thread made the very good point of whether the infrastructure is in place to manage a high volume of pcr tests. 

Anyway, it will be interesting to see how it progresses over the next few months, i sincerely hope it is a success for those whose livelihoods depend on it being successful.

[satpete]

countries has to speed up vaccine to every citizen,

the whole world cannot stay in a next lockdown at each country until 2022

take the risk and open the borders, even at new variants,

otherwise more people dies about to be hungry than about covid-19

we have to live with the virus next 3 years and cannot shut down everything

take care of older people will help much

Edited July 1, 2021 by satpete

[JamesE]

2 hours ago, EdwardV said:

The estimate of millions was for the entire country between now and the end of the year. it was originally 6M, than lowered to 4-5M, and then lowered again to 3M. The last change was to a range of  3M max with an expected total of just 1.4M and a minimum of 1M. The estimate for the Phuket sandbox alone was 129K over the next three months, but that's now been lowered to 1K. Even if you just use the last number, that's an average of about 1,100 per day.  

December, 2020 - May, 2021 the average was about 7K foreign visitors per month through ASQ according to BoT. Not sure how many of them would be siphoned off by the sandbox but any number officially released in advance should be taken under advisement.

[ENIGMA]

I have vested interest in Thailand and want it to work. 
But there is most definitely a vibe that expat travellers are lepers.

Yet the reality is that Thailand has uncontrolled and thousands of untraced outbreaks.

I'm not sure if Thais fully understand that we are being vaccinated to protect us from them. Not the other way round.

 

You can only have a Bubble Island if the R number is less than 1. Which unfortunately requires basically everyone being vaccinated.
Phuket's main bubble risk is unvaccinated carriers and spreaders, and border breaches - which inwards travellers are not.

 

 

 

 

  

[kmc]

"Not to be outdone, Etihad Airways followed a long-standing tradition that more of us are familiar with as the flight scheduled to arrive in Phuket at 10:20 am actually landed 40 minutes late at 11 am."

 

very funny Neil, actually had a 

Edited July 2, 2021 by King Cotton
Deletion of meaningless text-talk LOL, as per Guideline 15

[gordo2613]

all sorts of numbers are being quoted and some are asking how many Thais are on the flights and husbands of Thai women compared to actual tourist. The "real" number of people entering can be gleaned from the COE , according to the Thai Examiner. Only 4,100 people have registered for the month of July to enter LOS, and you must register and complete your information on COE before booking your flight

 

[bushav8r]

11 minutes ago, gordo2613 said:

all sorts of numbers are being quoted and some are asking how many Thais are on the flights and husbands of Thai women compared to actual tourist. The "real" number of people entering can be gleaned from the COE , according to the Thai Examiner. Only 4,100 people have registered for the month of July to enter LOS, and you must register and complete your information on COE before booking your flight

People have only been able to register for a few days so there will likely be more people registering before the end of the month.  The dust has barely settled on the sandbox and people are still sorting out the details.  I suspect husbands of Thai women and property owners, etc have already used the ASQ program to return to Thailand.  The sandbox/trap seems more geared towards actual tourists.  It seems like a great option for a short term stay.

[tron]

I can see how some business people would go through all of this. Condo prices are down and the baht is down. As a Canadain i could save 50% right now on a place compared to 15 months ago. For some that where planning on moving here in the near future( buying condo, buying business)  this might be worth the hassel. With chaos comes opptunity 

[BlueSphinx]

6 hours ago, dimitri said:

I am 100% sure that you have to wear a face mask in Spain, even outside on the street. Just like Thailand.

The only difference is that fines in Spain are a LOT higher than in Thailand.

 

In Spain as of June 26, coverings will not be needed outdoors as long as a social distance of 1.5 meters is respected

 

> https://english.elpais.com/society/2021-06-25/where-will-and-wont-it-be-mandatory-to-wear-a-face-mask-in-spain-from-saturday.html

[JamesE]

1 hour ago, gordo2613 said:

all sorts of numbers are being quoted and some are asking how many Thais are on the flights and husbands of Thai women compared to actual tourist. The "real" number of people entering can be gleaned from the COE , according to the Thai Examiner. Only 4,100 people have registered for the month of July to enter LOS, and you must register and complete your information on COE before booking your flight

Ummm... No. You can start your COE before booking your flight but you won't get an approved COE until after you can show a paid ticket/flight confirmation. You are also free to book your flight before starting the COE process which will speed things up a bit.

[Joe]

Welcome to Jail Phuket! If you have money you can get anything here!

Edited July 2, 2021 by King Cotton
Deletion of meaningless text-talk 555, as per Guideline 15