US "Mobile Passport" program

[Mark in CA]

Noticed the signs at SFO for the US's Mobile Passport program. When I checked it out, however, I read that it requires the submission of customs data for each journey that must be submitted within four hours of entry into the US. This requires a data connection to the Internet for your smartphone.

As an ex-pat living abroad, however, I do not have US data service on my smartphone and must rely on Wi-Fi. Do all the airports offering the Mobile Passport service also provide free Wi-Fi, and is it practical to use it to submit the required data and get your QR code receipt in the time between de-planing and getting to the immigration control point?

[RevMan2]

Actually, the QR code that's generated by CBP is only valid for 4 hours. Not sure if they've thought this through, though.
They say "Upon landing in the United States, travelers will complete the “New Trip” section by selecting their arrival airport and airline, taking a self-photo, and answering a series of custom declaration questions"
So you're meant to do this while walking from the aircraft to the CBP checkpoint in an area that forbids the use of mobile phones and photography? Or do you stop as soon as you're off the aircraft, fill out the information and then join the back of the queue of the other 500 SLFs on your flight?

Edited to answer original question: Free WiFi sometimes works, sometimes doesn't. Definitely patchy

[alserire]

As a matter of interest what is the average length of time it takes to get through CBP in JFK/SFO? I've always flown from Dublin so I've precleared but I'm considering a multi stop trip that would involve heading to JFK from elsewhere. Are we talking hours or under sixty minutes?

[DaveReidUK]

We flew into SFO from Sydney a couple of months ago. Took less than half an hour to get through.

[alserire]

Wow. That's probably quicker than Dublin now, which is getting very congested, especially before mid day. Anyone got any average timings for JFK with BA from London?

[PAXboy]

On the other hand, internal flights might have some delays:

American flyers are losing their minds - and missing their planes - as security screening chaos mounts | Americas | News | The Independent (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/flying-in-america-is-fraying-nerves-and-stoking-anger-as-security-line-back-ups-become-impossible-a7032931.html)

Travelers passing through airports in the United States this summer are being told to build in lots of extra time because of maddening back-ups at the security check-points that are already causing thousands of flyers to miss their planes every week.

Frustration at airports all around the country is close to boiling point as screeners hired by the federal Transportation Safety Agency, TSA, struggle to keep up with surging numbers of passengers.

[Mark in CA]

I sent a query to the agency running this program about how all this is supposed to work, and they sent this reply, which really didn't answer my question about availability of free Wi-Fi at these airports:

Yes, go ahead and get everything set up while you are on the plane. Once you land, turn on your wi-fi and select that airport's public wifi network. Mobile Passport is free to use on each airport's wifi network, including all the Boingo networks.

BTW, the email came from the CEO of the company doing the development work on these apps, Hans Miller.

You can send queries to: [email protected]