Originally Posted by
Bubblewhale
Apologies for not catching this earlier, thank you for bringing that up. It doesn't seem too bad once you explained it from there.
I was wondering because it that since it's going through T7 and LAX and not TBIT would make this generally lot more smoother?
I imagine the biggest choke point is the bag collection before clearing immigration/customs? I guess it wouldn't affect me due to having carry-on only. Flew TPE-SEA a month ago, I only had carry-on and it arrived late in the night. Just zoomed right on by with barely any wait at customs/immigration since didn't have to wait for bag drop as well.
Originally Posted by
dkc192
Yeah, T7 should be a fair bit smoother than TBIT. The only catch is that you could wait a bit if a bunch of UA/AS flights from Mexico and Central America arrive just before yours, but even so, I wouldn't expect there to be a major backup at immigration. CBP has a helpful average wait times website that you can query if it would help inform your decision and/or give you peace of mind.
I've never seen a particularly significant wait time at LAX T7 for even non-GE/MPC. I'm sure, this being FT, someone can arrive to contradict me
, but that is over many arrivals over many years. I would describe LAX immigration as slightly casual. Once I even saw a UA agent overseeing the GE machines for a bit, since the CBP person had to go do something else.
I would not worry about the LAX connection option, as suggested earlier. If HKG-LAX is heavily delayed, getting a routing change at HKG before departing is a good fallback.