V-Flyer

http://www.orlandoairports.net/press/2013/20130517.htm This link was on the Dibb. May improve things a bit

We were only waiting for 45 minutes to go through MIA immigration at the end of April. We were traveling on the VS005 in UC which helped. They moved some of us into the US citizens line to process us more quickly. There were notices in the hall warning of delays due to the cut backs.

I had similar at MIA last week after the VS005 and git through in 35 minutes despite the queue being to the back of the hall when I got there.

I arrived into MIA on Thursday and it took me over an hour to get through immigration and then another 30mins through customs.

I was in UC but for some reason they moved people queuing behind us to join the lines for the individual desks ahead of us which meant I might have been one of the first off but ended up being one of being one of the last to collect my cases.

A shambles in all honestly but one I was sort of prepared for, but it still annoyed me..... !

Jon

We waited a total of 2min at MIA when we took the VS5 a couple of years ago - by virtue of the fact that as we were sat right down the back and several flights had arrived just before so the international hall was completely full and we were the first couple directed down the US Citizens line. We got "evils" from a lot of people over the other side!

MCO was slow (60min) but not as bad as JFK (75min), the worst I've experienced was LAX at near enough 2 hours, thanks to not enough desks being open and the bizarre system they had of moving parts of the queue around all the time.

At least it sounds like MIA has improved upon the shambles that was "queuing" for the rental car shuttle buses with their new system though - I quickly learnt after the first time we flew into MIA that the approach was just to wait somewhere separate and flag the bus down before it got too full!

You can get CBP wait times for a number of US airports here





(if an error message comes up just ignore it and the report will generate in a second or two)

We were through MCO immigration, customs, had our Alamo vehicle (via OLCI) and were on the road within 40 mins of getting off the aircraft at the end of Apr. OK, we were first off the aircraft into an empty immigration hall, had an extremely pleasant and efficient immigration officer and our bags were second and third off the belt. A not-too-often-occurring set of circumstances, I agree. y)

There was no queue at customs Tuesday so straight through.

horburyflyer wrote:I arrived into MIA on Thursday and it took me over an hour to get through immigration and then another 30mins through customs.

I was in UC but for some reason they moved people queuing behind us to join the lines for the individual desks ahead of us which meant I might have been one of the first off but ended up being one of being one of the last to collect my cases.

A shambles in all honestly but one I was sort of prepared for, but it still annoyed me..... !

Jon

It seems you can hit bad situations wherever you go. SFO seems to be considered one of the quicker major airports and I've gotten through within 30 seconds before (sitting in 19A, I'm always first off!) but the very next flight a month later I had to wait over an hour!

petercooper wrote:It seems you can hit bad situations wherever you go.

Exactly.

Imagine an airport where the flights are scheduled to arrive 1 hour apart, and are expected to take 1 hour to clear through immigration. In theory, all is fine.

Now imagine that one flight is 20 minutes late, and the next flight is 20 minutes early. Anyone who flies regularly will know how plausible this is -- schedules are at best vague approximations as to when flights will arrive (and they are padded to defeat potential compensation claims for delays).

See?

Also had a very quick arrival at MCO last time I was there, compare this to arriving back at MAN from MCO in Jan where I had a 45 minute wait to get through UK immigration then another 20 minute wait for bags (because the baggage carousel was too full of bags due to everyone being stuck in immigration)

What p!sses me off more is when there are empty immigration booths and staff stood/sat there doing bugger all about it. There where 2 staff working at MAN and 2 sat on their backsides doing nothing to deal with a full 744 of 400+ pax.

At least if you can see they are trying to make an effort, pax do have a little more understanding.

horburyflyer wrote:I arrived into MIA on Thursday and it took me over an hour to get through immigration and then another 30mins through customs.
I was in UC but for some reason they moved people queuing behind us to join the lines for the individual desks ahead of us which meant I might have been one of the first off but ended up being one of being one of the last to collect my cases.
A shambles in all honestly but one I was sort of prepared for, but it still annoyed me..... !
Jon

90 minutes getting off and through LAX immigration; again UC and arriving with the first few pax at the rear of the non-US resident side of the hall. In front of us was approximately 15 non-English speaking passengers and two immigration officers.

The usual 'you haven't filled in the form correctly' which led to small groups standing around, not realising what they had to do and then, after approximately, 30 minutes the female immigration officer simply upped and offed and wasn't replaced.

In the meantime the remainder of the aircraft had joined the line and those arriving last were being diverted by the idiots in uniform into the now empty US immigration side of the hall; fully manned by immigration officers.

To be honest; this was beyond a shambles and was an utterly unpleasant experience. A sheep dog can herd bl**dy sheep better than LAX personnel can organise a line to minimise the wait time at immigration. !

It's not just at LAX, I had the same thing happen at JFK in March. First off an AA flight, joined the already half full Immigration hall, to then find as I was nearing the front, that the incoming passengers and those behind me were being moved to the other US lines as they bacame free.
The result was some people hardly queued at all, and some like me were last out.
Why can't they learn to feed from the front, and allow everyone the shortest wait they possibly can provide ?

ukcobra wrote:Why can't they learn to feed from the front, and allow everyone the shortest wait they possibly can provide ?

Doh! That would require a connection of active neurones in the employed staff, and management who give a f**k.

Unfortunately, I get the impression that if you make any sort of complaint, you may get singled out for 'special treatment' when you next go through immigration.

I've never heard any sort of complaint about immigration at Tampa, but it only has one long haul arrival everyday (BA from LGW).