PHUKET: The man in charge of Phuket International Airport until January this year is returning to his old role as the most important piece of Phuket infrastructure faces its biggest test.

Wing Commander Prathuang Somkhom was transferred off Phuket with 24 hours' notice after several passengers were allowed on a flight out of Phuket without undergoing proper Immigration proceedings.

He meets Phuket airport staff on October 21 and confronts rising concern about the ability of the obsolete airport to handle soaring numbers of passengers while a new international terminal is being built.

With eight million arrivals and departures likely this calendar year - the official maximum for the airport is 6.5 million - Phuket airport staff are constantly being given new challenges.

Biggest challenge of all will be to cope with the constantly rising trajectory of increasing Phuket passengers between now and when the new terminal is due to open in November 2014.

The coming high season on Phuket will be challenging enough with tourism leaders concerned that delays on arrival or departure tend to put passengers off returning to Phuket just as effectively as the overpriced tuk-tuks and taxis and the jet-ski scams.

Constantly coping with crowds beyond its capacity, efforts are being made for this high season to try to reduce delays caused by long queues at Immigration on arrival and departure.

The Superintendent of Immigration at Phuket airport, Colonel Treerayut Bootnumpet, told Phuketwan today that an increase of as many as 20 staff from November 1 would allow for smoother processing.

''At present we have 22 counters in the arrivals hall but only 12 staff available,'' he said. ''In the departure hall we have 21 counters but only nine staff.''

Colonel Treerayut said that Immigration officers would move from three eight-hour shifts a day to working two 12-hour shifts instead, which would allow for 17 officers in arrivals and 13 in departures.

''People can see how important Phuket is for the country now,'' he said. ''And after January, we will shift more numbers from arrivals to departures.''

He estimates that with 20 counters operating on Phuket, at one minute per passport, 100 people can be processed every five minutes. Such a rate would be a dramatic improvement - some arriving tourists have complained that they have had to spend longer in Immigration at the airport than on their flight from Singapore or Kuala Lumpur.

Colonel Treerayut made the point that Phuket's arrivals hall was nowhere near as large as the one at Bangkok's Suvarnabhumi airport, and it often appeared crowded because it was so tightly enclosed.

The Phuket hall could hold 800 people, but in reality that was just two charter flights, he said.

''Slot times are also a problem,'' he said. ''With more aircraft arriving almost at the same time, the passengers on those flights are put under pressure, and so are my officers.

''It woulds ease the problem if Phuket airport was utilised around the clock by airlines.''

From October 21, the smooth running of the Phuket airport will once again be in the hands of Wing Commander Prathuang, who was replaced with a stand-in and then Phuket's first female airport general manager, Duangjai Korndee, who arrived in June.

Wing Commander Prathuang's quick departure from the Phuket post related to a strange incident the previous October concerning passengers without credentials who tried to board a VIP flight to the Middle East.

Wing Commander Wicha Nurnlop, who managed Phuket International Airport after the crash of One-Two-Go flight 269 in 2007 and planned the expansion after the 2008 Phuket airport invasion, was Phuketwan Phuket Person of the Year 2008.