Baggage inspections are conducted by customs officers on a selective basis with particular attention paid to those arriving from suspect ports (e.g. those in narcotics-producing countries or those used in diversionary routes by drug traffickers).
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Customs clearance may take one of the following forms:
is only
-
the passenger
(a) oral declaration
asked whether he has anything to declare. This takes approximately 4 seconds;
(b)
cursory inspection
(c)
part of
the
passengers's baggage is selected for inspection. This takes approximately 30 seconds;
thorough examination
all the passenger's
baggage is opened for examination. This takes approximately 68 seconds; and
search
(d) secondary inspection including personal this involves checking the passengers' baggage and person. This may take two to five minutes.
are
On average, 59% of the arriving passengers cleared by oral declaration, 25.5% by cursory inspection, and 15.5% by thorough exmaination. The percentage of secondary inspection is negligible.
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The Customs Hall is equipped with 34 mechanised baggage examination counters but only 30 can be manned during peak periods. In normal circumstances, every effort is made to ensure that no more than six passengers queue up before a checking counter. The time required for customs clearance during peak periods would not normally exceed 10 minutes.
Recent developments
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Although most incoming passengers clear immigration within 30 minutes the length of queues during peak periods has been increasing since 24 April this year.
Because of maintenance work on runway shoulders the runway is closed to air traffic between mid-night and 8.45 a.m.. This has led some airlines to introduce new arrival schedules.
CONFIDENTIAL