I flew into Chicago on Thursday 8 November. After a long tiring flight from London, you expect a reasonably rapid transit through immigration.
Nothing could be further than the truth. O'Hare airport is appalling. 1 hour and 45 minutes is utterly unacceptable. Moronic paranoid border staff in totally inadequate numbers. It's an amazing city but until the queues drop to 20 mins or less, I shall warn people from visiting Chicago. Which is a shame. Is this standard for the USA?
Immigration queues - USA
Re: Immigration queues - USA
I have no idea if it is typical in the States but waits that long are not uncommon when flying in to Heathrow and I have waited at least that long on occasions at Luton (three plane loads arrived at border control at once) and at Gatwick.Ray wrote:O'Hare airport is appalling. 1 hour and 45 minutes is utterly unacceptable. Moronic paranoid border staff in totally inadequate numbers. It's an amazing city but until the queues drop to 20 mins or less, I shall warn people from visiting Chicago. Which is a shame. Is this standard for the USA?
Have fun,
Ian
Do not argue with idiots; they will drag you down to their level and beat you with experience.
Cogito ergo sum - Descartes
Cogito cogito ergo cogito sum - Ambrose Bierce
Cogito ergo sum - Descartes
Cogito cogito ergo cogito sum - Ambrose Bierce
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skirtingtoday
- Member Extraordinaire
- Posts: 1520
- Joined: Wed Nov 30, 2011 1:28 pm
- Location: Edinburgh, Scotland
Re: Immigration queues - USA
I have been to Chicago last year and we had no trouble getting through - however, that was on an internal flight from New York. On the flight from Edinburgh to NY, we had no trouble getting through immigration - it was virtually no delay at all (very impressive we thought). We had to wait about 15mins for the cases but once we got them, it was virtually straight through.
We have been to NY about a half dozen times, Florida twice, San Francisco once last year (flew via Paris - only delay then was French maintenance crews who were on a go-slow so we were delayed 2.5 hrs then) and generally had few problems getting through into the states. There was once we flew on 10th September when the delays were particularly long at immigration (high level of security on the day before the anniversary of 9/11) where your passport and details were checked within an inch of their lives!
I think the Visa Waiver scheme has helped speed things up and even the finger + thumb prints and photo does very little to delay you.
In fact I get longer delays coming back into the UK!
We have been to NY about a half dozen times, Florida twice, San Francisco once last year (flew via Paris - only delay then was French maintenance crews who were on a go-slow so we were delayed 2.5 hrs then) and generally had few problems getting through into the states. There was once we flew on 10th September when the delays were particularly long at immigration (high level of security on the day before the anniversary of 9/11) where your passport and details were checked within an inch of their lives!
I think the Visa Waiver scheme has helped speed things up and even the finger + thumb prints and photo does very little to delay you.
In fact I get longer delays coming back into the UK!
"A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on" - Winston Churchill.
"If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it" - Joseph Goebbels
"If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it" - Joseph Goebbels
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the_scott_meister
- Active Member
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- Joined: Tue Sep 07, 2010 4:27 am
- Location: Arizona, U.S.A.
Re: Immigration queues - USA
You have a right to be paranoid when everyone's out to get you.