I was a beneficiary of this program yesterday at JFK. I arrived on DL 107 from FRA and had a scheduled connecting time of 1:50 for my flight to MCO. We arrived 30 minutes late. As a result of late arrival and my general lack of familiarity with JFK I was not optimistic about my chances of making my connecting flight.

I was aware of the Meet and Greet program and was hoping that somebody would be waiting for me upon arrival. Lo and behold there she was with a sign with my name and the name of one other passenger. We were escorted through immigration and customs (no line whatsoever but my escort told me that if there are lines they are able to get us through quickly).

We then went to the security checkpoint where there was a very long line. Rather than going to the front of that line, I was taken to an elevator where we went up a floor and arrived at a different security checkpoint that had absolutely no line.

From walking off the plane to arriving at the gate for my departing flight, no more than 30 minutes elapsed. I believe that I arrived at and departed from Terminal 3 so the proximity of my departing gate to arrival location certainly helped; however, without the assistance, I'd have ended up waiting in the very long security line outside of customs and bumbling my way to my connecting gate. No way to tell if I would have made the connection.

In any event, this is a wonderful program and I give DL high marks for conceiving and implementing it. With that said, I will continue to avoid JFK whenever the opportunity to do so arises. I was shocked at how old and run down Terminal 3 is and can only imagine the improvement when May, 2013 arrives and DL has completed the transition to Terminal 4(?).