INS clearance times at PHL
 

I haven't flown into PHL internationally for awhile. Every experience I have in PHL seems to be sucky so with that in mind, I am concerned that 2 hours won't be enough to get to my connection in the F terminal. Other than begging Lufthansa to move me as close to the front of the plane as possible are there any suggestions for clearing immigration as quickly as possible? Is 2 hours even remotely reasonable? Is there a site that lists immigration average clearnace times by airport? I land at 1600 and from what I can tell there are 10 international flight between 1500 and 1600. Ugh.

That is a busy arrival block so hope that the flights are not all full. 2 hours may be sufficient. Once u come back up to A, there is an F shuttle.

If u do international often, this is a great reason to be in the Global Entry program....

I do intl flights about 3 or 4 times a year and I have thought about the GE. I got married and my passport is almost full ( I traveled a lot more 4 or 5 years ago) so I am thinking that I will send in the passport for my new name and extra pages and then see if GE is feasible.

That is a tough hour to land in--a lot of flights coming in. PHL is my home airport and I can tell you that immigration there is a complete crapshoot--sometimes there is absolutely no one in the immigration hall and sometimes it's jammed. Still, with two hours you should be OK. The other thing about PHL is that baggage claim can be just as bad as immigration, so if you are checking bags, you'll probably end up waiting for either immigration or the bag anyway. Use the A-to-F shuttle bus once you get back airside.

I do have Global Entry and thank my stars for it. Last time I came in, I was on the early BA flight and it was a bit delayed, landing around 4 PM. The place was a zoo. I strolled right on past all those poor people standing in line and was out the door of the airport in 5 minutes.

Two hours "should" be okay but, as others have said, it's a tough time. Possibly your flight out of F will be delayed. That's not an uncommon occurrence.


Bobette