More service hours to ease travel-document queues

Service hours will be extended at the Immigration Department headquarters and seven branch offices - which will be open from 2pm to 9pm on Saturday and next Saturday - in a bid to ease long queues for travel documents amid the peak tourism season.

There are no quota limits or a need for reservation needed on those two days. The usual morning service hours will not be affected.

Three sets of travel documents such as passport, reentry permit and visa are facing long queues. As of yesterday, online booking for passport applications were scheduled from tomorrow to Friday at seven branches in Central, Lam Tin, Tsim Sha Tsui, Sha Tin, Fo Tan, Tuen Mun and Yuen Long.

Those who wish to collect their documents in Wan Chai will have to wait until next Thursday.

"It is understandable that people are eager to vacation abroad, so we wish to help them," said principal immigration officer Yeung Suk-yee.

Yeung said the department has received 900,000 passport applications in the first half which already exceeds the 2019 total of 720,000.