MSPeconomist

I've seen TBIT customs decide to send every passenger from a certain airport through secondary inspection. When it happened to me, it took two hours and made me decide to get GE immediately.

If you have a single ticket/PNR, you have nothing to worry about but I wound not advise doing this otherwise, including on Southwest.

Unterwegs

I have GE and an european passports and use it at LAX all the time. The GE terminals are exactly in the middle of the immigration hall. The GE customs line the rightmost of the 5 or so lines.

cxfan1960

The discussion is related to LAX but not CX. I am moving this thread to the appropriate forum.

cxfan1960
CX CoMod

Often1

OP - Will you have checked luggage? If you can avoid that, it is also a time-saver.

naswi

Any word to the progress of the connector between TBIT and Terminal 4? Thanks

TWA884

I saw it a few days ago, when I picked my daughter up at the airport (we meet on the upper deck). It looks like it's at least six month away from being ready.

QRC3288

I am not familiar with the NEXUS program as a Canadian Citizen, but presuming you can use the kiosk with Global Entry (and it spits out that white printed form) you'll be in and out very quickly. Nothing to worry about. Note with that white Global Entry print out you can skip the sometimes insane LAX customs lines which are separate and after immigration. Head straight for the dedicated "GE" line, which is considerably shorter and might be mixed with flight crews IIRC. I land at TBIT ~6-8x annually on various CX flights, and on a number of occasions have seen fellow passengers who are presumably first-time LAX Global Entry users confused, and waiting in the long customs line. The reason I think this happens is LAX is an anomaly from the other CX American ports of entry, in that LAX frequently has this crazy customs-only line that doesn't exist at SFO, ORD, EWR or JFK. Don't bite! Look for the short lines, signs, or ask an agent.

Overall should be very quick, giving you plenty of time to enjoy the crappy AS and WN terminals. I wouldn't sweat it at all.

HkCaGu

I've heard that CX 898 arrival processing is easier than the other three flights later in the day. It departs too early for people from Guangdong to use it, so the CBP profiling and inspection may not be as strict.

QRC3288

FWIW, in 20+ landings at LAX via CX in recent years (the first 10 without Global Entry, the most recent 10+ with GE), I haven't seen anything out of the ordinary regarding profiling or whatnot on any of the CX flights. About half the time I've been traveling with a mainland Chinese national, so my US citizen status or GE privilege was pretty much moot as I waited by the baggage carousel twiddling my thumbs. He never got any special questions...he just had to wait forever due to the absurd lines that LAX and LA World Airports have perfected to a science. The times I've either been hosed (or witnessed fellow CX passengers getting hosed) is on account of landing behind other flights. Recently on Cx898, this was due to some Qantas / ANZ flights I think. A bunch of people speaking with accents from down under. I've also been crushed midday behind I'm sure Emirates (multiple times) and I also think perhaps Korean Air and China Airlines, as well as some mainland China flights and wherever else lands around CX884 (mid to late morning) and CX882 (early to mid-afternoon). In those instances, even as a US citizen we had zero line benefit because we were corralled in behind non-US citizens who had been merged into our line by the agents standing there in the concourse. I haven't flown CX880 in over a year (nighttime arrival) and can't really recall, but I picked someone up from that flight a few months ago and they were a non US citizen and it took them about 30 minutes. Seemed like there were a lot of Latin American flights landing around that time.

I've done CX898 twice in the last few months. Polar opposite experiences...once empty, once TBIT was a madhouse and all the lines were merged. Sucks for the guys on the CX flight who didn't have GE. But the crowds are probably irrelevant for this specific poster anyway (I think this thread got merged, the fellow I'm responding to is McDMan, I think he started out in the CX forum), since he appears to be able to use the kiosk. From wikipedia it appears that he should be able to use the kiosks provided his fingerprints are on file. And even if they're not, or there is some snafu, it says he can skip to the front of the line. So either way...even if TBIT is going on full mayhem style...I think he'll be okay. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NEXUS_...se_at_airports

flyertalker54234

When I went through last week, the AA Agent told me that a) the current story was late Spring 2016 and b) AA were now looking at reopening T4 CBP for part of day as before. Now you may well ask what inside knowledge AA agents are likely to have but I so hope they are right. T4 CBP was the best in USA (especially when in First on LHR flight) to the very worst with long taxi du to works, tow in gate, stairs, bussing to TBIT, long walk, APC Machines that seem to reject everybody and then horrendous lines behind flights with very few english speakers and lots of unmanned CBP booths. Plus TBIT has the slowest bags in LAX which is pretty slow in T4. I reckon an LAX CBP easily takes between 45 minutes to 90 minutes longer than JFK, ORD, SFO, DFW or HNL.

kcupp95

Would love some advice please.

Flying into LA in October, 2016 on QF15 from Brisbane at 0600.
Australian passport, 4th trip to the USA in 6 years (2nd trip on my current passport).
Have used ESTA all 4 trips.

The Qantas website is giving the following options for connecting flights to Seattle (on the one ticket)

0800 - VX781 (Virgin America T3)
0840 - AS455 (Alaska Airlines T6)
0950 - UA5608 (United Airlines T8)
1040 - AS449 (Alaska Airlines T6)

Will have checked bags and would like to have enough time to quickly grab some food in between flights.

What would be the most appropriate connecting flight?

TWA884

While the international to domestic minimum connect time at LAX is 2 hours, if I were you, I'd go for the 8:40 AS flight. The reason being that AS has the most flights from LAX to SEA - as many as 16 a day - so there are numerous backup options in case of a misconnect.

PV_Premier

you will not have any problem making it to AS455, IMO. VX781 might be a little bit close for comfort, however T3 is closer than T6 so a shorter walk, thus saving some time (5-10 mins).

UA5608 is an express flight on a CR700. probably to be avoided for that reason alone given that VX and AS fly the big planes.

bzcat

Since you have checked luggage, I wouldn't do any connection with less than 2:30. The Alaska one at 8:40 AM is the earliest I would attempt. Also gives you some time to eat breakfast

Regarding walking distance... by the time kcupp95 makes this trip (in October 2016), the TBIT-T4 connector should be open. That means potentially, kcupp95 can recheck the luggage and then clear security right in TBIT and then board the transfer bus to T6 - the TBIT/T4 bus depot will be right past TSA checkpoint in the connector building, and I'm assuming LAWA will be operating some type of shuttle. This info will need to be verified once TBIT-T4 connector opens.

kcupp95

Thanks guys - I was hoping that flight would be a good option