V-Flyer

Hi Everyone,

Hope you have all had a good Christmas

Looking at NY flights for next year and would be interested to know which in your opinions are the better ones to take ie in least busiest.
We would be travelling late August in PE :0

Thanks
CL

I think any travel next July/August/September is unlikely to follow any sort of normal pattern due to the Olympics and Paralympics and people wanting to come to the country to watch them and people wanting to leave the country to avoid them so what is normally a 'quiet' flight might not end up being one.

The only flight most knowledgable people would try and avoid is the VS45 but thats because it lands at a busy time at JFK and can lead to long queues at immigration.

As Tonty mentions, the VS45 gets into JFK late afternoon, around 4:40, and that's a busy time, so immigration can be rather rammed. when I took that flight this year, had about an hour and a half wait to get through immigration. Whilst it is a busy time , I prefer the timing of the flight. It's really down to personal choice.

Others have said on here that the VS3 is the best for short lines at JFK immigration. I am trying this out for myself in 2 weeks time so will of course report back with a trip report.

VS1 into Newark is usually a quiet time in immigration also

How about the VS17, I would expect quiet immigration at gone 11pm?

clarkeysntfc wrote:How about the VS17, I would expect quiet immigration at gone 11pm?

Not always! I've heard there can often only be a couple of immigration staff working at that hour.

totallylost wrote:the VS45 gets into JFK late afternoon, around 4:40, and that's a busy time, so immigration can be rather rammed. when I took that flight this year, had about an hour and a half wait to get through immigration.

There must be an element of luck to this, as when I took the VS45 a couple of years ago, we arrived pretty much on-time and were through immigration in under 5mins.

That said, this website http://apps.cbp.gov/awt/ is very useful if you want an idea on the expected wait times for immigration at the main US airports. It confirms one thing - I was very lucky when on the VS45.

classlass wrote:Looking at NY flights for next year and would be interested to know which in your opinions are the better ones to take ie in least busiest.

classlass, were you actually referring to immigration wait times, or did you mean the flights themselves?

Recently flew in on VS9 on a Friday eve and even though our flight was practically empty the queue in immigration was 1 hour 30. There were no more than 4 officers working and quite a few flights had landed at the same time.

Cal346 wrote:

clarkeysntfc wrote:How about the VS17, I would expect quiet immigration at gone 11pm?

Not always! I've heard there can often only be a couple of immigration staff working at that hour.

The disadvantage of the 17 is if you have to get to a hotel in Manhattan is that you more then likely won't get to bed before 1.00 AM

Thanks for all the input, l was referring to flights not immigration

We never normally go away during July or August but we have an invite to DC early Sept and l was hoping to fit a quick cruse in from NY beforehand.......may have to re-think this one with the games being on

Thanks again
CL

Cruise even!!

tontybear wrote:

Cal346 wrote:

clarkeysntfc wrote:How about the VS17, I would expect quiet immigration at gone 11pm?

Not always! I've heard there can often only be a couple of immigration staff working at that hour.

The disadvantage of the 17 is if you have to get to a hotel in Manhattan is that you more then likely won't get to bed before 1.00 AM

On a positive note, you don't have to deal with city traffic at that hour!

classlass wrote: l was referring to flights not immigration

Thought so!

That's a difficult question to answer. My experience has been that PE is nowadays more often than not completely full, even if Y is very light. VS3 and VS45 usually seem to be busy. VS1 and VS9 have also usually been full in PE whenever I've flown on them. Never tried VS17 as I don't fancy the late arrival.

The day of the week makes a bit of a difference, but August will be busy regardless, I expect.

Cal346 wrote:

clarkeysntfc wrote:How about the VS17, I would expect quiet immigration at gone 11pm?

Not always! I've heard there can often only be a couple of immigration staff working at that hour.

Yes they can be on a "skeleton staff level" late at night - I've seen only two officers on desks before so as you can imagine, the queue was horrendous.

All NY flights get very busy - some for different reasons than others. The VS3 has a lot of business travellers and British holiday makers on due to the lunchtime arrival whereas the VS17/18 both connect with the DEL/LOS/ACC/NBO flights so there is a lot of connecting traffic.