Originally Posted by
Boraxo
The waiting time always annoys me - we used to see 5-10 min lines at SFO just to hand your paper receipt to the CBP agent. The new system seems a little faster with the CBP agents barking your name when your photo appears on the tablet, but clearly it's not perfected.
FWIW though I have experienced the "don't approach unless you hear your name" format at other airports, that wasn't how they did it at IAD yesterday -- people exited the line more or less single file in the order they entered, and the agent looked each person up in the list of photos on the tablet. It was only after they scrolled up and down and couldn't find us on the tablet (and double checked that we both had GE and had both used the kiosk) that they sent us to the other agent for manual processing.
Originally Posted by
Boraxo
But the whole reason I pay for GE for my family is to eliminate the lines. Like Clear and precheck, it is pointless when the line for regular folks is shorter or non-existent.
I assure you, the non-GE line was longer. In any case, don't see how they can 100% eliminate lines especially when multiple international widebodies arrive at roughly the same time...