Originally Posted by
jasonvr
I would agree it defeats the purpose. Never seen an agent by the kiosks in the couple of times I've used it so far (IAH and SFO) and there was no one to present it to that I recall. Just walked from the kiosks to baggage claim and then on to Customs
Not sure when you used IAH but the set up has changed over the years.
Now they have 15 kiosks in a row in a seperate section that you walk by first when coming in from E (you walk past the visitors section to get to them from D). At the end of the row of 15 there is an agent at a booth though no computer that I could see (it is not the normal processing booth set up).
picture of it here
http://www.fly2houston.com/0/3526110/0/0/ but you can't see the agent, they would be to the left in the photo
as an aside here is a recent article on GE growth at IAH with numbers:
"During fiscal year 2011, 11,532 people were approved at IAH to participate in the Global Entry program. During fiscal year 2012, that number jumped to 19,983. During the same time periods, the number of kiosk users increased from 94,318 to 161,426. Kiosk users as a percentage of total internationally arriving passengers also increased, from 2.4 percent to 4.1 percent. "
About a month ago I used GE and 12 of the 15 kiosks at IAH were in use, one was marked out of order and I still had no wait getting to #13.
"From July 1, 2011 to June 30, 2012, an increase of more than 70 percent was recorded in both the number of passengers approved to participate in the program and the number of people using the self serve kiosks, which are located in the Federal Inspection Services (FIS) facility at IAH. "
Some older articles noted IAH was tops in enrollment and use this seems to note someone else is tops in enrollment now:
“We’ve been a leader in enrollment in the past and these numbers indicate that the buzz surrounding Global Entry is still growing.”