Immigration Delays at La Paz Airport

also the same system has been introduced in Santa Cruz and Cochabamba airports , so expect similar problems

Useful info tunabagel, muchas gracias!

Hopefully the customs officials will have been trained to understand the potentially complicated concept of red and green lights better than most of the country's drivers and pedestrians do.......

Thanks for that very useful info, tunabagel.

Like you, I doubt that this will be a temporary measure for the Christmas holiday influx of Bolivians living abroad with suitcases full of presents and goodies. Getting those green and red light gates installed seems like more of a permanent kind of thing, although in true Bolivian fashion, aduanas could also sit right next to them and chat or sleep, ignoring those gates and the travellers. We'll have to wait and see.

That person being let through with two packs of coffee does set my mind at ease somewhat though, as in a couple of months my dad will arrive with two pieces of wonderful Dutch cheese that I've been craving for since I finished the last two, half a year ago :)

People will be frantically looking for horns to beep on their luggage trolleys if they get a red light ;-)

lol - yeah , when i come back in Jan at night time if I get red Im just going to slow down slightly, flash the torch on my phone a bit and go through anyway

I didn hear anyone complaining about having to pay a tax or anything for presents either and I was sat there for quite a long time so maybe they arent being too strict as we had feared. Glad the wife didnt get stopped cos she actually had about 8 bags of coffee in there for pressie, erm I mean personal use.

Yeah Peter - pretty sure this is a permanent thing . On teh subject of coffee I saw that place you where talking about near Plz Murillo the other day - I didnt go in but it is the say as one of the boutique ones in San Miguel and that one is very good (although there is another one even better close by in san miguel). Nice to have that option in the center though , will deffo pay a visit soon.

#5:
I wouldn't know about Santa Cruz or Cochabamba, but I'm not too worried about things getting out of control at El Alto airport. If things become too chaotic and people too frantic waiting for or completely ignoring the green and red lights, they'll probably send in the cholita traffic regulator brigade .

This system was already installed when I was there in August. I didn't notice any delays or problems with it. As the line was already diffused because of customs people could just walk through the "gate" one-by-one without having to wait. If you were unlucky you were picked out of the line and had to open your luggage. This obviously meant you couldn't leave immediately but things went quite fast (according to my experience).
I found it more annoying that e.g. at Cuzco airport everyone had to open their luggage and re-pack, after the security went through it, while waiting in line to check in! This delayed the whole check in and caused some serious stress for some people in line...