Originally Posted by
BA-Flyer
No matter how bad Heathrow is, they have never been as bad as JFK. (At least in my experience).
After circling for 20 minutes, it took 1 hour to find a stand (even the captain was getting annoyed), and another 2 hours to clear immigration.
Got through to the baggage reclaim hall and discovered most of the bags from my flight had been dumped against the back wall. I had to rummage for 5 minutes before finding mine.
The customs officer then emptied my suitcase onto a table, started looking through the photos stored on my camera and reading through my confidential busines paperwork. After 10 minutes he then said "carry on", and walked away, leaving me to spend another 10 minutes carefully re-packing my suitcase.
Then the icing on the cake - it took 40 minutes to get a taxi outside the terminal.
iirc, customs need to have a warrant or of some form or known reason (eg we know youre carrying drugs) to search your luggage. If not the case in US, its defo the case in UK as informed to me by my friend in customs and excise. They arent allowed to randomly open your case.