Originally Posted by
stimpy
There is if you fly AF P! At least at IAD I witnessed it. Driven to immigration in a private Mercedes and escorted to the front of the line. And bags arrived first before any others. Clearly AF pays the airport authority for the good service.
Yes and no. A number of airlines - AF is just one of them - offer their F or VIP pax a personal escort through immigration, which often includes jumping the queue or using the diplomatic channel. But that is not a priority lane in general, and in many cases the airline escort has to ask whether he/she can jump the queue with the pax. I doubt that Air France or any airline pays the airport for faster immigration (they probably do for the car transfer), as that isn't something that CBP "sells". I have conversed on that topic a number of times with LX and LH staff in North America, and they explained to me that they had their "friendships" and good relations at local CBP teams thanks to which this would be tolerated. The LX people for instance used generous amounts of chocolate (Swiss, not Hershey) to keep the CBP teams at JFK friendly (funnily enough they also do that with ATC, where some centers in Europe get chocolate mail from LX. When the LX flights e.g. from London to Zurich then get a "proceed direct Basel BLM" when they're just over the Channel the pilots call it "chocolate routing"). Also, bear in mind that at some airports even the personal escorts can't help with queue jumping. I think LAX was one of them, but to be honest I don't know thanks to GE.
Originally Posted by
orbitmic
I wouldn't exonerate them of their reputation just yet. Two of my last three MIA arrivals took well over 2 hours to clear immigration (having used kiosks each time!)
Ough... terrible. Last things I had heard was that it had gotten much much better. I feel for you.
But back to topic: indeed, the longest immigration lines that I can recall to have been in recently were in Paris CDG (not only 2E, but also in terminal 1) and London LHR, despite priority and access to biometric controls. So I am glad CDG is addressing the situation, and I sincerely hope that things will improve markedly.