andymcdonnell

Just landed on BA 179 from LHR. The flight was due in at 21.15 but landed at 20.25 but there was no ground crew available, finally deplaned at 20.55. The queue at T7 immigration was ridiculous, well over an hour in length & we were amongst the first off after flying in F. A truly unpremium experience

Modo

Pretty much the same at Heathrow for non EC citizens if you get in to Heathrow on one of the early flights arriving from Asia.

Same Same but the Same in Chinglish.

KeaneJohn

So in other words you were cleared 25 mins after your scheduled time of arrival. That’s not bad going.

Joking apart my last 2 JFK arrivals I’ve been on a delayed short connection so escorted to the front of the queue and the other was on the BA1 so did pre clearance. .

Fraser

Meanwhile tonight in T8 on AA105 (LHR-JFK). Touchdown at 5.30pm, landside with checked bag by 6.05pm. Scheduled arrival was 6.05pm

AA is really trumping BA in both the arrival and departing ground experience at JFK in F.

UKtravelbear

BA aren't responsible for the speed the US CBP take to process passengers.

mhy

JFK (or any US airport, for that matter, AFAIK) doesn't have any special fast track immigration lane besides Global Entry and diplomat/crew/VIP lines. They really ought to introduce it, but i doubt it will happen.

Beltway2A

What kind of relationship do you expect your flight's class of service to have with your wait time at U.S. Immigration and Customs?

Lefly

There are countries with immigration fast track for premium passengers. I guess someone could reasonably wish to have the same in other countries too.

Grace B

Well perhaps not the USA. It's one of the reasons (but not the only one) I've not travelled to the US for over 10 years.

corporate-wage-slave

Here are the timings for you:
22 minutes from landing to gate is reasonable for JFK, BA177 took 25 minutes. It is unusual with an on time departure to get to JFK - in that direction - some 30 minutes early, indeed 11 minutes before the calculated landing time. In the other direction, not so much.

And as an unrelated digression, this is the second thread on this flight, see also:
Time to get to B gates, T5 ?

If you were off the aircraft at 20:55, then the most that was ground agent related would have been 10 minutes or so, which may be explained by arriving so much before the calculated time.

CBP at T7, yes everyone knows it is bad, and BA regularly report their concerns in the monthly stakeholder meeting with the Port Authority. It is very difficult for the CBP to do much about this, apart from their own funding and staffing problems, T7 is going to be demolished in 2 or 3 years time and putting investment into T7 isn't going to happen.

NWIFlyer

I guess the OP’s point is that those in Y might well have been looking at a considerably longer clearance time, rather than having any sense of entitlement being in F.

T7 does seem to have taken on something of a mind of its own recently - last time I went through in May even Global Entry went to a desk for a short set of questions and a passport stamp (although I was still sitting in the T8 Flagship Lounge with a drink in my hand less than 35 minutes after stepping off the plane), but from reports the questioning seems to have intensified in the months since.

I’ve not seen this anywhere else in the US, although there will be far more frequent travellers than me with much better data sets.

Markie

This is since the facial rec came in and I think is because there are no questions on the GE machine and so someone has to ask them.

A P Yu

T7 hasn’t always been this bad though, so clearly something can be done.

i now choose AA for this route exactly for this reason of poor arrival experience.

jp-mco

I understand how frustrating it can be to wait a long time to clear US immigration at certain airports. It is not uncommon to wait 2 hours when arriving at MCO. We applied for Global Entry earlier this year and, quite honestly, it has transformed our travel to the US. I would highly recommend you do so to avoid further long waits in the future.

Steve_ZA

My most recent USA arrival was at MCO who also have the new GE machines, no questions and no stamps there.