will connecting time increase in American arrival airport due to covid requirements?

[Plague]

It took them almost 90 months from off the plane at International arrivals to their boarding gate at the Delta terminal.

I know ATL is big, but ...

Interesting what they say about not doing immigration at MCO in future. Is it really much worse than the others?

 

[disneyholic family]

Thank you, Yes!! Phew!

So it turned out that they were very impressed with ATL! They said it was a lot of walking and very busy at immigration and customs but lots of staff and the line just kept moving so it was a continuously moving line. It took them almost 90 months from off the plane at International arrivals to their boarding gate at the Delta terminal. Now they would have moved way slower than the average passenger so 90 minutes wouldn’t have been sufficient connection time for them And I’d argue it would be tight for anyone. I have them 3 hours and they didn’t feel panicked or pressured. Just exhausted, but otherwise all good. They were so impressed with the friendliness and efficiency there though. They said if they ever travel this way again they will be sure to clear immigration etc at a different airport because it stood out worlds apart from the constant chaos at MCO

As far as the Covid proof my dad said they checked everything at each of the three airports, although the US side didn’t need vaccination info, but he said they checked it anyway. I guess they had all their papers together and just presented the bundle each time.

If anyone one has questions let me know and I’ll ask them

thank you again for all your help.

so happy to hear that they made it safe and sound and it all went smoothly!!!!
.

 

[disneyholic family]

I know ATL is big, but ...

Interesting what they say about not doing immigration at MCO in future. Is it really much worse than the others?

pretty much every entry point into the US can be a nightmare depending on how many planes arrive at the same time as your plane..

perhaps since international travel just restarted, there were fewer planes than normal in Atlanta when her parents arrived, so maybe it was less chaotic than normal...

in 2019, a few months before everything shut down, my daughter and i entered the US at MCO in orlando.
It was our first time to enter in Orlando (as opposed to jfk, boston, newark and detroit - the places we typically enter).
I'd heard stories about how bad MCO can be, but for us it was a breeze..
Why?
we were the very first plane of the day to arrive and our plane arrived super early, so we were a good 30 minutes before any other plane got there...

so it was just our flight in the immigration hall.....i think we were still on a 747 that they've since discontinued, but it was just our plane...
everyone zipped right through....
and the immigration officers were even friendly despite the ungodly hour of our arrival (5 am)....

unfortunately the pandemic ended that route (which el al had just started)...
so this summer we're trying out miami, which i've also heard is a nightmare...
we shall see...
we already know JFK is a nightmare, so may as well enter the US a bit closer to orlando if we can...

 

[disneyholic family]

rethinking the above, atlanta probably is easier than MCO since far fewer planes enter the US in atlanta.
It's a delta hub, so you get a lot of delta planes coming in, but probably not that much of anything else..
whereas MCO is a major destination for many many airlines.
It won't have as much international traffic as miami, but probably more than atlanta...

 

[Plague]

so we were a good 30 minutes before any other plane got there...

The problem for me is that I need to 'visit a bathroom' before joining a possible 1 hour queue (I've not seen anything about pass-outs) so I'm always at the back of the line .

Funny (or not) story ... Last time I landed at MCO I was actually near the front of the queue for immigration when a couple of agents left. (It was about 6pm and I guess their shifts ended.) There was quite a queue behind me and 2 or maybe 3 agents still going.
About 5 mins later I got to a desk and ... yep, the computer wanted to give me the full monty (I have an hypothesis as to why). So the agent pings for assistance. After several minutes - looking anywhere but the (now rapidly increasing queue) - no-one arrives, so he shuts the desk down and himself takes me off to the place where they search your case for [whatever*]. No more desks had been opened at that time.
I felt so bad for those people stuck in that queue, but what can you do?

* I was released without charge

 

[disneyholic family]

The problem for me is that I need to 'visit a bathroom' before joining a possible 1 hour queue (I've not seen anything about pass-outs) so I'm always at the back of the line .

Funny (or not) story ... Last time I landed at MCO I was actually near the front of the queue for immigration when a couple of agents left. (It was about 6pm and I guess their shifts ended.) There was quite a queue behind me and 2 or maybe 3 agents still going.
About 5 mins later I got to a desk and ... yep, the computer wanted to give me the full monty (I have an hypothesis as to why). So the agent pings for assistance. After several minutes - looking anywhere but the (now rapidly increasing queue) - no-one arrives, so he shuts the desk down and himself takes me off to the place where they search your case for [whatever*]. No more desks had been opened at that time.
I felt so bad for those people stuck in that queue, but what can you do?

* I was released without charge

one year (many many years ago) we flew into JFK on the 4th of july.
as always, we arrived in the very early morning.
there were only 2 agents working at that hour on a major holiday.
One agent for aliens (that would be you) and one agent for americans
It was a 747, so there were a lot of us, but also a lot of other planes had already arrived as well.
Anyway, if you've ever been in immigration in terminal 4 at JFK, you know that it's HUGE.
An enormous cavernous room that fits a LOT of people.
This was way back when we were what we refer to in the family as "the original four", my husband, daughter, son and me.
In other words, only americans, none of the aliens that have invaded since the kids married.
So we were in the line for citizens, which normally moves along rather swiftly in comparison to the non-citizen line.
Well not on the fourth of july with only 1 agent working on the american side.
We were in line for about 80 minutes.....apparently they wanted to get us ready for WDW...

The only other wait of that length happened to us in 2017, again in JFK (do not EVER EVER EVER EVER land in jfk)
By then we had our family aliens and as i've related before, the youngest among us (22 months old) was marked by the system for special care so we had to go into the "we think you're a criminal" line (it doesn't say that, but we all know that to be the case).
That line took forever and a day.
Which resulted in our race to our next flight, having first to go through security again because of the terminal change (avoid JFK at all costs).

 

[2Tiggies]

I know ATL is big, but ...

Interesting what they say about not doing immigration at MCO in future. Is it really much worse than the others?

Clearly you have no idea how big the airport is

got to love autocorrect!!

it’s been years since I did international and cleared passports etc at MCO and I also stopped using MCO for the same reason. It always seemed like so many international flights landed around the same time and they were always understaffed and struggled to process the volume of passengers.

on the domestic side I did a LOT of travel between 2017 and beginning of last year and it was impossible to avoid MCO since that's our nearest airport, but it was similar chaos even without customs, confusion at baggage claim and just generally felt disorganized. I’m not sure if anything has changed since Covid - we learned to enjoy road trips lol.

 

[Plague]

It always seemed like so many international flights landed around the same time

They do. Flights from Europe generally take off morning through lunchtime and fly through the day to arrive late pm-evening local time.
Going back they turn the plane round, depart in the evening and fly the night to arrive in the morning in Europe (most big airports have bans or heavy limits on night operations). Turn the plane round, repeat. Maximises use of the planes with a return trip in every 24 hour period.

So yes, you'd think MCO would gear up for the rush hours a bit more as it's a regular thing.

but it was similar chaos even without customs, confusion at baggage claim and just generally felt disorganized.

So maybe not so much advantage in coming via ATL or the like?

 

[Flossbolna]

one advantage of clearing customs in Orlando is, that you don’t have to worry about the connecting flight. The long line might be miserable. But even worse is a long line and the time getting closer and closer to your next boarding.

for anyone traveling to the US regularly and from an eligible country, I can really recommend getting Global Entry. It’s such a game changer for that process.

 

[disneyholic family]

one advantage of clearing customs in Orlando is, that you don’t have to worry about the connecting flight. The long line might be miserable. But even worse is a long line and the time getting closer and closer to your next boarding.

for anyone traveling to the US regularly and from an eligible country, I can really recommend getting Global Entry. It’s such a game changer for that process.

i always look at it, but we travel to the US every few years, so it doesn't seem worth it.

 

[Flossbolna]

i always look at it, but we travel to the US every few years, so it doesn't seem worth it.

I understand. We seem to go at least once a year and I figured if I use it 5 times, it’s 20$ per use. And that’s worth it to me. Of course first trip with it, my father came along and I waited with him through the long line. Then the pandemic hits. First no trips, then the visit in September which got me into secondary screening coming from Schengen area and traveling under spouse exemption.

 

[disneyholic family]

I understand. We seem to go at least once a year and I figured if I use it 5 times, it’s 20$ per use. And that’s worth it to me. Of course first trip with it, my father came along and I waited with him through the long line. Then the pandemic hits. First no trips, then the visit in September which got me into secondary screening coming from Schengen area and traveling under spouse exemption.

there are 9 of us in the group so that's really expensive..
but in any case, my son in law, daughter in law and 3 grandchildren aren't even eligible as they're citizens of countries that aren't part of the global entry program (Israel and Chile).
i could do it as an american (as could my husband, son and daughter), but there's no point if the rest of the group can't...

 

[steve_rob]

I've never had a problem at JFK, but then admittedly I've never arrived at Terminal 4, so maybe that's the reason... (always seems to be 6 or 7, possibly due to who I've flown with).

One time landing at Atlanta, the US side of the queues was virtually empty while the "Aliens" side had huge queues (even though both had plenty of booths open), so the immigration official in charge of directing traffic took the wise idea to usher over a large number of people to the empty lines - I'm pretty sure the agents didn't care; no doubt they're trained to process both types of arrival and they were there twiddling their thumbs otherwise.

Of course, by the time we reached the front of the new queues, the hall had started filling up again on the American side as well as more flights had landed and I could hear a guy behind us (who'd clearly clocked the non-US passports being held by everyone ahead of him) loudly complaining that all these people were in the wrong queue. I turned to him (and with a smile I hasten to add) and pointed to the person who had moved us across, saying that he'd told us to stand here and that I was not one to disobey a direct order from an immigration official! Luckily we were called forward at that exact moment so didn't get to stick around to see if he accepted this response...

 

[disneyholic family]

I've never had a problem at JFK, but then admittedly I've never arrived at Terminal 4, so maybe that's the reason... (always seems to be 6 or 7, possibly due to who I've flown with).

One time landing at Atlanta, the US side of the queues was virtually empty while the "Aliens" side had huge queues (even though both had plenty of booths open), so the immigration official in charge of directing traffic took the wise idea to usher over a large number of people to the empty lines - I'm pretty sure the agents didn't care; no doubt they're trained to process both types of arrival and they were there twiddling their thumbs otherwise.

Of course, by the time we reached the front of the new queues, the hall had started filling up again on the American side as well as more flights had landed and I could hear a guy behind us (who'd clearly clocked the non-US passports being held by everyone ahead of him) loudly complaining that all these people were in the wrong queue. I turned to him (and with a smile I hasten to add) and pointed to the person who had moved us across, saying that he'd told us to stand here and that I was not one to disobey a direct order from an immigration official! Luckily we were called forward at that exact moment so didn't get to stick around to see if he accepted this response...

British Airways uses terminal 7, as do several other airlines.
Different airlines use different terminals at JFK, each terminal with its own immigration hall.
And all of them can have crowds depending on the time of day.
However, the terminal 4 immigration hall is notorious. There is a sea of humanity in there almost the entire day.

 

[Flossbolna]

there are 9 of us in the group so that's really expensive..
but in any case, my son in law, daughter in law and 3 grandchildren aren't even eligible as they're citizens of countries that aren't part of the global entry program (Israel and Chile).
i could do it as an american (as could my husband, son and daughter), but there's no point if the rest of the group can't...

I totally get that. The only other really neat perk that comes with it is that I now get TSA PreCheck for US flights as well. This is nice, no shoes to take off etc.

British Airways uses terminal 7, as do several other airlines.
Different airlines use different terminals at JFK, each terminal with its own immigration hall.
And all of them can have crowds depending on the time of day.
However, the terminal 4 immigration hall is notorious. There is a sea of humanity in there almost the entire day.

There is actually a website where one can look up typical wait times for immigration:

https://awt.cbp.gov
It's a bit cumbersome, but I have used it in the past to research certain connection options. I am sure that currently times are totally off with still not back to normal travel schedules etc. But in general it is a nice tool. Looking at wait times, you can totally see how much depends on when certain flights come in as to when the bottlenecks come up. And how if your flight is fast or delayed can make all the difference.

 

[disneyholic family]

https://awt.cbp.gov
It's a bit cumbersome, but I have used it in the past to research certain connection options. I am sure that currently times are totally off with still not back to normal travel schedules etc. But in general it is a nice tool. Looking at wait times, you can totally see how much depends on when certain flights come in as to when the bottlenecks come up. And how if your flight is fast or delayed can make all the difference.

i use it as well...
currently the best way to use it is to go for dates in 2019, as 2020 and 2021 aren't representative..
i checked that site yesterday actually - i was curious about miami..
miami has a bad reputation and in fact for our flight's arrival time, the average alien wait is pretty darn high and the maximum well over an hour..
oh well...we shall see...