For those of you planning to make flight connections at ORD - we arrived at ORD at approx 1430 hrs and were still waiting to clear immigration at 1710 hrs, the time of our ongoing flight to MKE. There were at least 1000 people in the hall and the queue went right out of the holding area. No air conditioning, with everyone, including many elderly, infirm, pregnant etc. passengers all left to stand for hours. We eventually cleared at 1735 hrs.
The first thought was that this massive backlog of arriving passengers was due to enhanced security at the present time in the US. This wasn't the case though, the immigration officers were no more or less thorough than usual; the problem was that only about 50% - or less - of the immigration booths were staffed and open.
Note that having missed our connecting flight, neither Virgin nor United Airlines (the ongoing carrier) were in the least bit interested in sorting out our ongoing journey, on the grounds that the problem was caused by US immigration and not them. The best we could getwas an offer of a UA flight the next morning which we would have to pay for, in addition of course to losing the cost of the flight we had booked but missed, though no fault of our own - I think most reasonable people would say 3 hours to transit was sufficient, even at ORD.
In the event we caught a bus. Not a happy experience (on top of the fact that our PE experience was ruined by the passengers in front of us who had their seats fully reclined for the whole 9 hour flight).
The first thought was that this massive backlog of arriving passengers was due to enhanced security at the present time in the US. This wasn't the case though, the immigration officers were no more or less thorough than usual; the problem was that only about 50% - or less - of the immigration booths were staffed and open.
Note that having missed our connecting flight, neither Virgin nor United Airlines (the ongoing carrier) were in the least bit interested in sorting out our ongoing journey, on the grounds that the problem was caused by US immigration and not them. The best we could getwas an offer of a UA flight the next morning which we would have to pay for, in addition of course to losing the cost of the flight we had booked but missed, though no fault of our own - I think most reasonable people would say 3 hours to transit was sufficient, even at ORD.
In the event we caught a bus. Not a happy experience (on top of the fact that our PE experience was ruined by the passengers in front of us who had their seats fully reclined for the whole 9 hour flight).
