Reports of delays at US Immigration?

[cavortingcheetah]

I don't think this has been brought up before? We shall see.

Much has recently been made of the Hawaiian Sequester and the effects that it might have on US immigration queues. I wondered if any of the Wrinkled Plum intrepid travellers, whether crew or passengers, had noticed any extra long delays at US immigration queues. I am always prepared for a two hour wait to get through to baggage claim but longer begins to become a little tedious especially when travelling with those who are pregnant. Whether one could use that fact as a legitimate queue jumping tactic remains an exercise for the day.

Specifically:
New York: JFK.
Time: Weekdays +/- 16.00hrs.

Many thanks for any information on either JFK or any other US port of entry for that matter.

[ExXB]

By all means request assistance for the "Passenger with Reduced Mobility". It is required to be provided by airlines (in the US) and airports (in the EU).

P.S. You get to go with them ... :ok:

[RevMan2]

LAX last Tuesday 06:45 with 3 QF widebodies arriving within minutes of each other and a few assorted other arrivals.
The usual light blue-jacketed busybodies from LA Airport shunting passengers here and there and distributing us between the 8 or 10 agents on duty.
Then when one queue got too long, taking newly arrived passengers from the BACK of the queue and putting them to the FRONT of any queue.
Those of us who WEREN'T' fortunate enough to be at the back of the queue at the right time waited an hour before we were processed by an extremely apologetic immigration agent.
"I just wish they'd use common sense" he sighed.
Best line came from the guy behind in the queue/in line:
"I don't normally drink, but they're slowly driving me to it..."

[Heathrow Harry]

through JFK last week - 2 minutes in Immigration - but it was at the DELTA terminal and not the main international one

[cavortingcheetah]

I shall find out tomorrow!
Not, I fear, at the Delta terminal but rather in the stews.
Many thanks to all who posted.
Safe travels.

[mixture]

cavortingcheetah

You do know there is this wonderful tool called Google don't you ?

A simple search would have lead you to this website (http://apps.cbp.gov/awt/)

[TightSlot]

Thank you for that rather useful link: If only it could have been provided without the sarcasm.

[Hotel Tango]

I would challenge its accuracy to be honest. My son experienced a 105 minute wait at ATL on a Thursday at 14:00. A tad longer than the 39 minutes indicated on the mentioned site.

[radeng]

interesting that it doesn't list PHX or SAN

[RevMan2]

The airport wait times on the CBP website are pure lies.
12 March, LAX QF from SYD
20 booths open? Maybe half that number.
Maximum waiting time: 26 minutes? We were in line for over an hour and we weren't the last through.
And how do they source the metrics - on-blocks to the last record for a passenger completed in the CBP database or simply a guess that roughly matches the KPIs?
The latter, in case anyone's wondering

[Contacttower]

JFK, Philadelphia, Orlando...always seem to wait at least 45 mins to an hour. Once at JFK early in the morning I think I had to wait almost two hours. I know Heathrow for non-EU citizens is pretty bad as well but the US seems consistently bad at all major airports to the point where I dread travelling there.

[RevMan2]

Or are they giving times for US residents. They're generally through in a flash by virtue of the simpler processing and being overproportionally represented in booth counts.

[ExXB]

Perhaps a rhetorical question, but why would they post times for non-americans? Not in their interest to do so.

[cavortingcheetah]

Flight came in 15 minutes ahead of schedule yesterday afternoon and there were two lines in the visitors' 'snake' ahead of us. That entailed a wait of around forty minutes. So there was no apparent delay to the published normal wait times because of sequester consequences which was, as I remember, the point of the original question.

[Ancient Observer]

The way in which airports and security Cos measure time spent in queues is not the way you and I measure it.

I am not the expert, but someone reading this might know the tricks and catches that they use.

I remember once one of the UK papers pointed out that lhr queues experienced by people were 3 hours. BAA said they were 15 minutes. BAA were including statistics taken from 0100, 0200, and so on. No one there, so no queue.

[grounded27]

"delays at Immigration"


Say it ain't so.......