SJCFlyerLG

I flew in to FLL from BCN on DY last week. Scheduled arrival was 8:00PM on a Tuesday evening. We were about 10 minutes early. As we pulled up to the gate, I noticed a couple of air stair trucks and buses. I guess it is normal for this flight to have a bus gate. After the seat belt sign went off, we all prepared to depart - I was in 4C, so close to the forward door. After standing for about 10 minutes with the stairs in place, the captain announced that customs was late arriving, so they could not open the doors. I thought this was very strange, considering the large number of international flights at FLL. In another 10 minutes, the announcement changed - now the captain said that immigration had a large back up, so we would stay on board for some more time. That certainly didn't gel with the first announcement.

At 8:35, the doors opened, and we deplaned onto the bus. The driver was determined to turn the bus into a can of sardines, so we had to wait another ten minutes as they squeezed everyone inside. We have Mobile Passport, which is supported at FLL, so we figured we would get through quickly, and given the delay time, our luggage would be waiting. After a long walk, we came to the kiosk area, but there were no signs about Mobile Passport. We asked the moat dragon, and he waved us into a line behind the kiosks. That turned out to be the same line where everyone went to after getting their APC form from the kiosk. Advantage for Mobile Passport lost. Curiously, during our walk, there were multiple signs promoting the speed of Mobile Passport.

The line moved agonizingly slow, and when we finally reached the end, we were directed into the "standard" line, despite seeing a booth for Mobile Passports. I asked again, and that dragon insisted that we had to be in the same line. They were waving GE pax to the front. This line also moved at a snail's pace. There was one immigration officer, and another office wearing a "Police" uniform - helping out? Finally, a very efficient immigration office showed up, and things moved faster. We finally got to the front, and quickly cleared in. Almost no one was using Mobile Passport. Considering that we have paid for the service, we should have been able to go to the front just like the GE pax. They didn't even let crew skip the queue.

A word about the facility - GROSS! The walls looked like a temporary trailer, and the carpet looked like it had been around since 1979. It was dirty, the signage was poor, and it very congested. Several people in the line that were flying on Spirit had already missed connections.

We emerged into the baggage reclaim area, which was also congested and dirty. Our flight was not listed on the board, so we guessed our bags were among the thousand or so that had already been taken off of the belt; they weren't there. We saw a couple of employees hanging out on mobile carts in the back, and they told us to go to the front belt, which was still turning. Our bags were there.

At this time, in every other arrivals facility, we are used to simply exiting through the green lane. But not in FLL - once more we had to queue up, and wait for a customs officer to "inspect" our documents. For Mobile Passport, we had to scan both of the codes before we were allowed to exit. By now, we had been on the ground for two hours and ten minutes. Just ahead of us was an off-duty DY flight attendant. She told us that some nights, it can take three hours to clear.

We had to go to the rental car center, and when we got the the queue, it was clear that the bus was completely full. Staff said that she had called another bus, but it was stuck in traffic - at 10:30 on a Tuesday night. Clearly, this airport is not designed to handle the amount of flights that are using it.

We found FLL to be a terrible experience as an international arrival port. It's a sad excuse for an airport, and it's a shame that many international visitors see this upon entry. FLL claims that there will be a new facility open in 2020, but I will be avoiding it until then. The employees seemed to be on angry power trips, and the facility was disgusting.

Taco Tuesday

I for one LOVE traveling to FLL. I only go there domestically, so I have not experienced the customs part you are talking about. The agents have always been pleasant and helpful. The car rental center is right there on site. It is thousands upon thousands of times better than the airport 25 miles south...

pinniped

This. I've only entered the U.S. at FLL once and it was not crowded.

MIA seems like a perpetual [redacted by moderator]. That's my least-favorite port of entry. Seriously, MIA makes LAX look like a beacon of modern efficiency.

SJCFlyerLG

Hmmm. In the past 4 years, my arrival experiences at MIA have been great. The last time I experienced any wait time there was in 2014.

SJWarrior

ksu

I guess much of the international traffic into FLL was on Norwegian (DY) - indeed the OP was travelling on DY. As DY as part of its insolvency restructuring has announced that it will cease all intercontinental traffic, FLL will lose much of its scheduled intercontinental arrivals.

DELee

Bummer for FLL.

David

writerguyfl

That is simply not true.

The following airlines have arriving and/or departing international flights today according to the official FLL website:

• Air Canada: Montreal
• Avianca: Bogota
• JetBlue: Bogota, Cancun, Havana, Kingston, Medellin, Montego Bay, Port Au Prince, Punta Cana, Santo Domingo
• Spirit: Armenia (Colombia), Barranquilla, Bogota, Cancun, Cali, Cap Haitien, Charlotte Amalie, Guatemala City, Medellin, Port Au Prince, San Pedre Sula, San Salvador, Santo Domingo

Source for Arrivals: https://www.broward.org/airport/Pass...nArrivals.aspx
Source for Departures: https://www.broward.org/airport/Pass...epartures.aspx

teddybear99

writerguyfl: Flights from Canada and the Bahamas are treated like domestic flights as they go through immigration before boarding the plane.

ksu: Do you mean international instead of intercontinental? Most of the international flight arrivals are from the islands of the Caribbean, so not all the planes are flying from another continent, like Europe, but some come from South America..

writerguyfl

Yeah, I did read "intercontinental" as "international." But, I think the basic premise of my post still stands. There are still lots of flights from South America, so losing Norwegian flights doesn't really represent the loss of "much of its scheduled intercontinental arrivals."

ksu

I wrote intercontinental, not international. Whether South and North America are one or two continents might be an interesting point for discussion. A flight from Colombia to Fort Lauderdale might technically be an intercontinental flight, but so are certain domestic Spanish and Turkish flights (Europe and Africa/Asia).

Your arrival list is a COVID-period list, but I do note that none of the arrivals you list are from another continent than America. Many of the flights are from the Caribbean, and the longest flights listed are less than four hours.