V-Flyer

Which are the quickest airports in the US for getting through immigration - and conversely, which are the worst?

I realise most of the time it can take quite a while to get through the US Airports, but are there any that are especially good or bad? IAD with its daft buses springs to mind for example...

Thx.

On Dibb there are à lot of people using Dublin Airport to clear USA immigration there so no wait when thé plane arrives in USA

Interesting, didn't know that was possible.

But there aren't any VAA Dublin routings obviously, so not applicable in my case (I want to use VAA - and I should have said so!).

Anyway, an interesting thing to know.

I would never think of routing myself to try and avoid immigration queues. As I said in another thread, there are so many things that are out of your control, you could choose an airport that has the best average processing time and then get delayed and end up behind 3 other flights and have gained nothing.

When travelling, there are many things that I can control or do to make my journey as easy as possible, there are also many that I cannot control. For those that I have absolutely no control over, of which the length of time it takes to get through immigration, I will not let it worry or stress me out as there is no point. Yes, you can make sure you sit in a place on the a/c to help beat the other passengers on your flight, but other than that, there is nothing you can do.

Of course, others may disagree and these are just my opinions.

I've never had a major issue at any US airport - that said I've only flown to JFK, BOS and BWI.
Queues yes but nothing approaching what you get at Stansted on a Sunday night!

Sarasota and Tampa are both very good for short queues by US standards.

Clarkey is right about Tampa but of course thats a BA route not VS. sarasota is also great but isnt an international hub. Fort Myers another great one but only has international flights from Europe.
worst experiences for me have been Miami (always) with staff, q's and the fact it is generally a sh** hole. followed by Charlotte (US air) where Bubba the fat immigration officer declared 'this is ma countree and if ay don wanna let you in I ain gonna' .his role model was obviously Boss Hogg.

as for best, it can depend on so much. I have breezed through Orlando in less than 15 mins deplane to car and also taken 2 hours. New York, great on the real late flights, 45 a nightmare at least at MCO and JFK the IOs are generally friendly.
I think my nicest/easiest vote would go to Atlanta

I'm not sure any of the airports VS serve are any better or worse than each other as they're all major international hubs.

The length of the queue tends to depend mainly on how many international flights have arrived just before yours.

If none, you'll breeze through. But if a 747's just landed from a country the Americans are, let's say, not best friends with then prepare for a very long wait.

But as another poster said, UK airports can have much longer queues - it's just that, for UK and EU citizens they tend to move much faster whereas in the US each passenger takes at least 3 minutes to process. Assuming 10 desks are open, that's 200 an hour which means a full 747 could take 2 hours to deal with.

Best advice, if you're travelling economy, is to sit as near the front as possible. And try and research flights that don't arrive around the same time as lots of others.

There can be a huge crush at Orlando because 2 x VS and 1 x BA all tend to arrive within a few minutes of each other and race each other to the gate!

gumshoe wrote:There can be a huge crush at Orlando because 2 x VS and 1 x BA all tend to arrive within a few minutes of each other and race each other to the gate!

worth having a whip round for the driver to get in first

an incentive bonus..."get me to the front of the queue before BA and the MAN flight and its a bigger tip"....well this is America !!

As others have said, it is not so much a matter of which airport, but of arriving at a time when the previous flight has been processed.

The VS3 is good for this. VS11 also gets good reports. I have not myself had problems with the VS7 or the VS19, but I don't fly those routes very often.

Hey

BWI on BA is great provided you are quick off the plane or last off the pane. I say that because they only tend to have 1 or 2 non USA immigration booths open. So if you are near the front great. If you are at the end great because when they have processed the US citizens they drag the end of the non US line over. So if you were at the end you then suddenly are at the front of a new queue. If you dawdled into mid line position it sucks to be you! Usually a 767 as well so not huge crowds to deplane.

Leaving BWI isn't so great -nothing really after security.

Also have done RDU with AA to the go onwards to DC and whilst it was a nice airport they had one immigration booth for Non US and one for US. I had a long lay over so was not overly stressed but luckily I was near the front of the line.

What I didn't like was there was a separate line for wheelchair people and ALL their clan-the immigration man then decided to clear the entire line before processing anyone else.

There must have been at least 6 wheelchair users and one woman had 5 family members with her.

Without starting an anti disabled/elderly argument i felt they could have done done it on a an alternate basis as opposed to clearing the entire line and their families first.

Reiterate nothing against disabled/elderly and their accompanying families.

The few years we flew regularly into LAX it could be a nightmare. Seems to attract plane loads of folk who would approach the immigration officer and claim asylum...

In my experience, LAX, ORD and MIA in summer are hell, as VS airports. Both LAX and MIA have clearance facilities in other terminals, reserved for folks flying certain airlines, so the experience tends not to be universal. ORD offers no such comfort, and TBH in summer it is by far the worst place I have seen. That said with Global Entry I am mostly an observer, not timing it.

As has been noted, other VS airports are more variable, none being reliably fast, all having strong dependencies on when you fly into them and at which terminal. I've seen little in the way of queues at DFW for non-US, non-green card holding pax as the overwhelming majority of its traffic is through AA and euro flights tend to carry mostly US pax for them. Done nowhere near as many flights through there as I have SFO or ORD, but it looked pretty mellow.

Craigrlewis wrote:Hey

BWI on BA is great provided you are quick off the plane or last off the pane. I say that because they only tend to have 1 or 2 non USA immigration booths open. So if you are near the front great. If you are at the end great because when they have processed the US citizens they drag the end of the non US line over. So if you were at the end you then suddenly are at the front of a new queue. If you dawdled into mid line position it sucks to be you! Usually a 767 as well so not huge crowds to deplane.

Leaving BWI isn't so great -nothing really after security.

Also have done RDU with AA to the go onwards to DC and whilst it was a nice airport they had one immigration booth for Non US and one for US. I had a long lay over so was not overly stressed but luckily I was near the front of the line.

What I didn't like was there was a separate line for wheelchair people and ALL their clan-the immigration man then decided to clear the entire line before processing anyone else.

There must have been at least 6 wheelchair users and one woman had 5 family members with her.

Without starting an anti disabled/elderly argument i felt they could have done done it on a an alternate basis as opposed to clearing the entire line and their families first.

Reiterate nothing against disabled/elderly and their accompanying families.

Some disabled people can not wait in line that long, none of us are experts on each illness but knowing some of my family members even sitting in an uncomfortable airport wheelchair for extended periods would be impossible. The disabled are not one group of people that should be targeted in this argument.

Sorry wasn't targeting anyone. My own father in law was in a wheel chair. So no offence meant by my comments.

MarkedMan wrote:In my experience, LAX, ORD and MIA in summer are hell, as VS airports. Both LAX and MIA have clearance facilities in other terminals, reserved for folks flying certain airlines, so the experience tends not to be universal. ORD offers no such comfort, and TBH in summer it is by far the worst place I have seen. That said with Global Entry I am mostly an observer, not timing it.

As has been noted, other VS airports are more variable, none being reliably fast, all having strong dependencies on when you fly into them and at which terminal. I've seen little in the way of queues at DFW for non-US, non-green card holding pax as the overwhelming majority of its traffic is through AA and euro flights tend to carry mostly US pax for them. Done nowhere near as many flights through there as I have SFO or ORD, but it looked pretty mellow.

For VS destinations, nothing beats the amazing inability of IAD to process more than 2 international flights at a time in less than 2 hours; and MIA is notorious for both incompetence and indifference. However, I've never waited more than 30 mins at BOS, EWR or SFO and was in a cab within 15 mins of landing -admittedly in UC, first off the plane and with hand luggage! - at LAS new T3. At JFK, LAX and ORD it all depends what landed 2 mins before you (avoiding mid-afternoon can help); while at MCO at least the queues are orderly since they're mainly Brits!

Any airport where you can preclear ): .

Seriously though, there isn't such a thing - for example I've always found SFO to be one of the easier ones but then on arrival last time I flew there it was mayhem and easily 1 1/2 hrs. So you just can't predict.

Worst experiences though have been MIA and IAD - although at the latter the VS ground staff can sometimes help.

I thought that LAX was going to be a nightmare because we were last off a packed 747 - the family got a very special treat courtesy of the flight crew but we joined the end of the line so got moved to another one and then another one, so got through Immigration while the bags were still going round the baggage belt. We then waited another 30-40 mins in the line to get out of customs.... (TBIT)

When I was through IAD in October (UC) walked into a completely empty immigration hall - my lift arrived at the same time as I walked out through customs.

Less busy on later flights though? Am hoping an upcoming one to LAX (lands around 8pm) will mean less hassle. But maybe it'll be worse!

slinky09 wrote:Any airport where you can preclear ): .

Seriously though, there isn't such a thing - .

the LCY-JFK on BA001 Slinky...I am amazed you havent/dont use it......I am giving it a go in June and will report back

SFO can be a breeze, or a total nightmare.

I've had straight to the window and stuck behind the Air France flight but before the BA flight.