US Entry and Departure

[seanpodge]

Not the most regular traveller to the US but the two times I entered in recent years, SFO was smooth and reasonably quick while LAX was a joke.

 

[Mal]

At LAX, Book a fully refundable flight close to when you arrive (Eg 60 mins), show the ground staff the itinerary and you get express clearance

 

[ozbeachbabe]

Our last experience at LAX was in November ex QF15 from BNE. The flight arrived at 0612 but as the airport doesn't 'open' until 0630, they couldn't open the a/c door until then. We were processed through Customs by 0650 then wouldn't have even had to wait 5 minutes to hand in our arrival form so exited TBIT by 0655. Our AA flight to LAS wasn't until 0955 but we had HLO we made things smoother.

If you do have a connecting flight make sure both flights are either on the same ticket or at least same alliance eg QF & AA so your bags will be tagged to the final destination & you would then be protected if you misconnect.

Alternatively stay the first night at the US gateway city to avoid the stress of a missed connection if you haven separate tickets for airlines than won't through check on separate tickets.

Just been through Miami and it was chaotic. Got to be careful to allow enough time from lounge to gate.

The first time I cleared in MIA we were flying SDQ/xMIA/DFW & we had 2 hours & it was manageable chaos. A few weeks ago we flew AUA/xMIA/LAX but I didn't realised you pre-clear US Customs at Oranjestad Airport in AUA which took about 90 minutes.

They only had to deal with a single AA 737 flight to deal with but only had 2 customs agent then a third arrived half way through proceedings. We were still standing in the queue to be processed at 0930 when our flight departed at 0945 but still had about 40-50 pax behind us. The flight was late departing as it waited for everyone to be cleared.

I think there were a few system issues which compounded the problem. Despite all this the Customs guy who processed us told us how much he would like to visit Australia.

Flew into LAX on QF11 (A380). Just behind a Korean a380. So stuck at immigration for over 1 hour. I got the impression that the Korean air pax had no idea about filling in the immigration forms. me no speak english. So delays were augmented by this.

My brother flew NZ to LAX & experience the same issues as you. A couple in front of him off the KE flight got to the Customs guy with blank forms in hand & he cracked it & just sent them to the back of the queue.

 

[Alanslegal]

As others have mentioned, MIA is pretty chaotic (from my one experience flying in from MEX).

LAX has been generally not too bad really. Yes the lines can be long but that's expected. Someone mentioned a KE flight landing just before QF does, well I happened to be on that KE flights, its an A380 flight so loads of people, but lucky I was in F and I was literally first in the line at the immigration checkpoint, took less than a minute

Just a mention about US customs, I find them wayyy better than the Australian guys ! At least when you land in USA, they have signs saying something along the lines of "your first impression of us will be most likely by your interaction with the customs guys, we are here to do an important job but at the same time we hope to do it well". When I get back to Australia from my overseas travels 4-8/year I get worse customer service experience here, sad, but that's my personal experience.

 

[Quickstatus]

Someone mentioned a KE flight landing just before QF does, well I happened to be on that KE flights, its an A380 flight so loads of people, but lucky I was in F and I was literally first in the line at the immigration checkpoint,.

That was me. QF11 arrived after KE A380. Lots of blank forms... Pax not able to read the forms....

 

[phily]

I think there were a few system issues which compounded the problem. Despite all this the Customs guy who processed us told us how much he would like to visit Australia.

It's standard procedure for US Customs to engage arriving pax in some sort of conversation, to see whether your responses are anything out of the ordinary.

 

[Quickstatus]

It's standard procedure for US Customs to engage arriving pax in some sort of conversation, to see whether your responses are anything out of the ordinary.

But with a lot of the KE pax their responses will definitely be out of the ordinary. "Me no speak english"

 

[Awesom Andy]

But with a lot of the KE pax their responses will definitely be out of the ordinary. "Me no speak english"

It would be out of the ordinary if someone didn't respond with "me no speak english"

 

[Foreigner]

It would be out of the ordinary if someone didn't respond with "me no speak english"

Those four words work wonderfully well for me when I'm interrupted by men and women who promote one cause or another, esp. around Martin Place in Sydney. I shrug my shoulder and utter 'me no spik englis'.

 

[RooFlyer]

Those four words work wonderfully well for me when I'm interrupted by men and women who promote one cause or another, esp. around Martin Place in Sydney. I shrug my shoulder and utter 'me no spik englis'.

I tried something like that in Beijing, after the umpteenth time I got bugged by a 'Hello, I'm a student, want to practice English!' person. I replied: "Sprechen sie deutsch!"

Whereupon the said 'student' rattled off what sounded like a retort in perfect German!

 

[erkpod]

Those four words work wonderfully well for me when I'm interrupted by men and women who promote one cause or another, esp. around Martin Place in Sydney. I shrug my shoulder and utter 'me no spik englis'.

"Hombre non comprende espanol" worked well in Mexico City last year!

 

[mushypeas]

EWR is a pig if an airport too. Last flight from YTZ took 90 minutes to clear immigration.

 

[Foreigner]

EWR is a pig if an airport too. Last flight from YTZ took 90 minutes to clear immigration.

Oh, I understood flights from Canada had USA pre-clearance.

 

[mushypeas]

Sadly not Toronto City Centre (Porter / PD).

 

[TomVexille]

Oh, I understood flights from Canada had USA pre-clearance.

Not all flights, only flights from airports with that facility. According to wikipedia, there's only 8 cities in Canada with US preclearance.

United States border preclearance - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[drron]

Worst for us-MIA.It seems to be better if you speak Spanish.
In second place ORD.4 arrivals there.3 with huge waits but this last time on the same AA flight as on 2 previous occasions it was a breeze.So naturally our connecting flight was delayed.
Have not had a bad experience arriving at LAX,JFK or DFW.

 

[Jimgotkp]

Worst for us-MIA.It seems to be better if you speak Spanish.
In second place ORD.4 arrivals there.3 with huge waits but this last time on the same AA flight as on 2 previous occasions it was a breeze.So naturally our connecting flight was delayed.
Have not had a bad experience arriving at LAX,JFK or DFW.

MIA is part of the US?

 

[drron]

MIA is part of the US?

Possibly not.On this last trip had the AAA discount at a Gap outlet denied when showing my RACQ card for the first time.The Spanish speaker at the next register got it after denying she was a member.

 

[serfty]

MIA is part of the US?

In my experience they speak better English in SJU than in MIA.

As an aside, one of the beauties of Puerto Rico is there are no immigration formalities when heading back to mainland USA.

 

[QF029]

I've had well over 2 hours at JFK Terminal 1 including a good 45 minute wait before we were allowed into the hall due to overcrowding.