Jan 15, UA 935 arrrived
1 hour early, due to tail winds, and we were
still bussed to TBIT. Not a well-organised exercise to begin with.
Bradley was a zoo. Several other flights had arrived/were arriving at the same time, and the lines even for US citizens and residents were enormous with very few agents on duty.
Stood in line for almost an hour just to get into the country - welcome home, everyone!
It didn't end there. All the bags had been offloaded at a carousel (and they changed the number twice so it wasn't easy to find anything), and this was followed by everyone trying to find the end of an enormous line snaking its way right round the terminal - took
almost another hour to finally exit to the street.
That's the last time for me. I'll be flying in from LHR via ORD or SFO in future.
I had an identical experience on the 12th...it took almost 2.5hrs to clear immigration, retrieve luggage and clear customs...I was told by a "ranking" CBP officer at Bradley that the new requirements for visas are causing a "log jam" ...I asked why T6-7 FIS was closed (I asked in December as well) and the answer was the lack of CBP staff and UA just having one flight arriving in the afternoon...he also told me that they would be back in T6-7 in April (we shall see) I also talked to a couple of UA service directors at Bradley...they indicated that it was a horrible situation and that we should contact UA as corporate did not listen to them!! (their exact words were "please write!!") They also confirmed that they would be back in T6-7 in April...One on my angels in T7 told me that UA would have had to pay a higher fee to DHS to have UA935 clear in T6-7 since it was the only flight arriving in the afternoon...I believe that since UA stopped the FRA and MEX that DHS instituted the new plan...
Whatever the reason, it is the pits!!...and to UA935 travelers...please write to corporate and let them know what a disaster this is!!