lorcancoyle

Great crew (cabin and flight - I'm inclusive), pre-clearance at SNN was a breeze so we landed on time despite headwinds (though I have a grudge against Ukraine International Airlines given a near 30 minute wait to get on stand while they blocked an Iberia plane...)

But then...

Was about 4th or 5th as we followed a BA staff member through a maze of corridors as he opened various doors, when I recognised a familiar slope (so accelerated tactically) and suddenly a massive immigration queue hove into view. Our escort had been going at a brisk pace and was heading down the U.S. citizens side, so was a good 20 yards or more ahead of us when he cut through the non U.S. line into diplomatic channel. Thankfully I knew this might happen so followed him through and confirmed we should be going this way, by which stage I was alone - somewhat confused other pax were the far side of the immigration queue and had to be retrieved by him.

At this stage we were in baggage reclaim pre-customs - who understandably wouldn't let us through to domestic baggage claim without establishing what had happened. Thankfully some really good CBP staff on duty who brought the 22 of us to the unused customs channels, supervisor (she had a great amused / resigned look when she'd been hold what had happened!) got two agents set up to cross-check passports against SNN preclearance log so we could be let through once identity confirmed.

Crew seemed somewhat relieved to see us when they arrived at carousel 4 (no bags in sight), apparently someone had realised (duty manager?) that there'd been a screw up and had gone looking for us!

Was in a cab within about 30 mins of disembarking so not too bad all things considered (given our bags were actually on carousel 5 which had a 747 of QF passengers also trying to grab their bags; won't go into the bizarre route to carousel 4 via BA lost luggage room!)

So BA crew - 10/10
CBP - 11/10
BA JFK - 3/10 (I like to think that if I hadn't kept up it would have been 1/10 - given my physical shape that's impressive!)

Banana4321

Yes I agree that it is hard work keeping up sometimes. I go for Row 1 there and Row 8 back

Greenpen

Have pity on the UIA passengers crammed into seating with minimal legroom, unable to move their legs or find a comfortable position.

Whoops, BA is the same now!

lorcancoyle

Row 2 myself this time, but didn't look as if 1A would be disturbed by galley, toilet etc on the BA1/3 flights (will reconsider seating strategy for future)

BerksFlyer

Immigration was poor yesterday. We waited1h30m off BA177 and joined the queue at the top of the slop and round the corner. When we got to the front of the queue we spent a couple of minutes chatting to the lady who was putting people into individual queues for an immigration officer. She said that the times she works she never usually sees people off BA173 and rarely sees customers off BA177. Yesterday she saw half the plane from 173 and the whole plane off 177 (myself and Mrs BF were amongst the first dozen or so in the queue from 177). She didn't seem to know what had caused the problem but was quite apologetic.

DYKWIA

Am I missing something here?

What exactly was the issue? Has something been missed out?

shefgab

Sounds like despite clearing immigration (and customs?) in SNN, the BA 1 pax ended up in the normal arrivals area in JFK and the "guider" manged to loose all but 1 pax.

lorcancoyle

Equivalent of a UK domestic flight letting its passengers off into an area where they'd have to clear UK immigration (we were a domestic flight for customs and immigration purposes having precleared both at Shannon) - i.e. monumental BA screw-up that thankfully didn't go as badly wrong as it could have.

If you'd opted for BA1 and preclearance and then ended up in a 90-120 min queue at JFK to clear them again you'd be mightily pi$$ed! I heard at least one pax asking how to complain about it - I'm just venting / sharing (choose as appropriate ) on here, given we managed to muddle through.

ETA - exactly as shefgab put it (much more succinctly)

DYKWIA

Ah, thanks. I *was* missing something

I remember getting off a BA flight at Newark a few years ago. I was first off, so walked quickly towards immigration. I wasn't paying attention, so I didn't realise we'd come into an not-usual gate. I thus made a mistake, and turned left instead of right at some point.

On realising my mistake, I stopped and turned around. At this point I realised that the rest of the passengers had just followed me, and were all behind me