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American Homeland security

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URL: https://www.chalfontstpeter.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=6454
Printed Date: 29 March 2024 at 12:33pm
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Topic: American Homeland security
Posted By: born and bred
Subject: American Homeland security
Date Posted: 27 August 2011 at 8:36pm
 I recently went to the USA for a wedding. We had to change planes at Chicago for an onward flight to Alaska. Due to the over the top attitude of the customs/ homeland security we missed our connection. A day lost as we had to rebook on a flight 24 hours later. They were shouting at people if they used their phones. None of their staff cared one iota  about the passengers. An airport to avoid. Anchorage airport was however brilliant.
 
 


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local born and bred



Replies:
Posted By: big baggles
Date Posted: 27 August 2011 at 9:57pm
you want to try dallas, it sounds just as bad.........Thumbs%20Down

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need a stella and i need one now !


Posted By: Eaton
Date Posted: 27 August 2011 at 10:03pm
My in-laws are Spanish and obviously have Spanish passports.  About 5 years ago they flew to NZ (from Heathrow) via LA to visit their youngest son, his wife and their 3 children.  They had a connecting flight booked and only 3 hours between flights.  They almost missed their flight because they were treated so abysmally!  They are not in the best of health and elderly and were left standing for the entire time in a corridor waiting to be 'processed'.  The next time they flew to NZ they went via Hong Kong but were terribly worried that they would be treated just as badly there but of course they weren't.
 
They are so paranoid about illegal immigrants they seem to overlook the fact that not everyone wants to live in the USA and some people do actually have connecting flights to take them to other parts of the world.


Posted By: Grovesy
Date Posted: 28 August 2011 at 12:47pm
Wow - I fly into the US a couple of times a year...mostly Dallas, and always had a warm friendly welcome.  Customs, immigration and airport security have always been excellent. 

However...I have experience long queues with often not enough staff to process people.

I think our own Airport Security could take a lesson or two from the USA ones in terms of customer service.  In the USA your greeted with smiles and welcomes - in the UK the best we can seem to do is a grumpy face.




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"Never doubt that a small, group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has."
MARGARET MEAD


Posted By: Eaton
Date Posted: 28 August 2011 at 6:23pm
To be fair the only time I've ever flown into the USA was Las Vegas last year and I was treated very politely by all the staff but maybe that's because it's a party town.  On arrival there was a queue but we were through it within 10 minutes and I've queued longer than that at Heathrow and Gatwick.


Posted By: lee s
Date Posted: 30 August 2011 at 3:16am
I'm in the US at the moment and flew via Chicago about 2 wks back and the immigration thing nearly made us miss our connecting flight. We had almost 3 hrs in between flights and barely made it with 10 mins to spare.
Other US airports we've used have been fine but having twice experienced the same issues in Chicago ... never again. Mainly disorganised queue management and couldn't careless attitude - very unlike other parts of America!


Posted By: big baggles
Date Posted: 30 August 2011 at 6:52pm
like you Grovesy there is always a huge delay at dallas  terminal D ( international terminal)  which i encounter on nearly every flight in there,
all the locals go sailing through and we get the 3rd degree even though visas/ estas are all sorted and in place prior to arriving,- we also flew from dallas down to san diego on an ' internal flight' and we got pulled aside for having UK passports  ( as we dont have US id cards !!!) we were delayed for 75 minutes to explain the reason for our internal flight.....
 
but i suppose they need to be sure we are who we say we are !


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need a stella and i need one now !


Posted By: Grovesy
Date Posted: 30 August 2011 at 10:42pm
Well, on that note BB I do confess to cheating slightly..Mrs Grovesy is one of those pesky Americans, so when we travel together we look for the shortest immigration line and join that one - works a treat (the one time we didn't she was detained at immigration in the UK...it was just a little amusing (for me) at the time.

It's just a pain when I travel on my own and I have to get in the Alien line ;o( 

Thanks for the tip about internal flights, we are making one soon from DFW to Tahoe...we'll make sure we check in extra early. Grovesy Jnr is really quite excited about the trip...

So...going totally off topic..sort of...

Anyone done the parks in California? Disney / Universal?  Whats best for a 4yr old (and 1yr old in the buggy)...is 4 too young to appreicate Disney? We've been to California a couple of times, but not with a young family..anyone done any fun family things that won't require quantative easing to pay for?




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"Never doubt that a small, group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has."
MARGARET MEAD


Posted By: big baggles
Date Posted: 31 August 2011 at 10:55am
legoland california of course !!!- in Carlsbad about 45 mins drive from san diego

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need a stella and i need one now !


Posted By: Grovesy
Date Posted: 31 August 2011 at 10:59am
Of course...!  Silly me... Cool



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"Never doubt that a small, group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has."
MARGARET MEAD


Posted By: Nico
Date Posted: 31 August 2011 at 5:30pm
The worst immigration experiences we've had were back in the 90s at LAX & Miami - in both cases down to simply having insufficient staff around to handle multiple incoming big jets, leading to people getting cross & rude, with predictable response from officialdom. If anything, since 9/11, although the processes have gotten more complicated, I've found the staff to be friendly & welcoming - hopefully this will continue now the Transportation Security Administration have taken over responsibility for airports.

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The more that things change, the more they stay the same


Posted By: born and bred
Date Posted: 01 September 2011 at 4:04pm
 I didn't realise so many locals travelled to the States.
 


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local born and bred


Posted By: Calvados Kid
Date Posted: 01 September 2011 at 5:02pm
I have never been there and I aint goin there anytime soon. No sir, not in these trousers.     Shocked

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verba volant scripta manent


Posted By: Pants 2 Tight
Date Posted: 01 September 2011 at 5:14pm
Originally posted by Nico Nico wrote:

If anything, since 9/11, although the processes have gotten more complicated, I've found the staff to be friendly & welcoming
I went to New York on business 6 weeks after 11/9 and it was hell. We all understood why it was so bad so we just toughed it out and didn't moan but the officials were horrible, just horrible. They treated us like cattle.

There were so many complaints and horror stories emerging that changes were eventually made to the processes and personnel training but it's still a chore to get through.

It's so much nicer if they just smile once in a while.


Posted By: phisch21
Date Posted: 01 September 2011 at 5:23pm
depends on the airport - JFK a nightmare and staff generally rude. Newark is great plus the journey into Manhatten is much much easier


Posted By: big baggles
Date Posted: 01 September 2011 at 5:39pm
Originally posted by born and bred born and bred wrote:

 I didn't realise so many locals travelled to the States.
 
 dont have a choice.... work send me !


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need a stella and i need one now !


Posted By: Chillies
Date Posted: 02 September 2011 at 6:50pm
All the Eastern Airports are very slow i have never had issues on Internal flights though and I do that a bit.
 
Germany is getting easier now. I go there once a week and it is getting almost walk through, eathrow on the other hand.. last Friday 58 minutes at T1 ..


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www.chalfontchillies.co.uk Twitter: @chalfontchillie Facebook: chalfontchillies

Often to be seen walking his Staffie Cross and two Chihuahuas so please say hello


Posted By: Malc London
Date Posted: 03 September 2011 at 12:38am
Originally posted by born and bred born and bred wrote:

 I didn't realise so many locals travelled to the States.
 


The immigration stories put me off.  Prefer Italy.




Posted By: Bucks Fizz
Date Posted: 03 September 2011 at 6:56am
I might add that I've had very good experiences flying into San Francisco. The Immigration Officer was particularly friendly. He wished me a happy St Patrick's Day and recommended things for me to see in that wonderful city. Am going to fly into San Diego airport in a couple of days. Will report back on the welcome there.


Posted By: big baggles
Date Posted: 03 September 2011 at 9:36am
san diego airport approach is great,  you come in low and fast, and just above the roof lines of local properties ...- you can see the residents reading their newspapers -you are that close....

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need a stella and i need one now !


Posted By: hissing sid
Date Posted: 03 September 2011 at 9:52am
Did you ever fly into the old HongKong airport?
As for the USA. I drive back and forth over the Canda US border weekly with no problems.

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Hissing Sid

It's a free country, adopt whatever PC stance you want. Just don't tell me which stance I should take just because it clashes with your opinion.



Posted By: Bucks Fizz
Date Posted: 03 September 2011 at 11:05am
The scariest I've done is Madeira (Funchal airport). The runway is on a shelf, cantilevered out from the side of this Cottage loaf-shaped island. Pilots have to get the angle of approach just right and many overshoot. Then again, dropping into London City airport one is a bit heart in mouth too.


Posted By: Dave-R
Date Posted: 03 September 2011 at 12:43pm
Yeh i ve been to Madiera! The runways on stilts!


Posted By: Eaton
Date Posted: 03 September 2011 at 3:22pm
I've always hated landing at Gibraltar!
 
Having said that I've always hated flying and after a brake failure at Alicante about 15 years ago I wouldn't fly for about 6 years and despite having hynotherapy I still wasn't overly happy.  Now I take valium and wine when I fly and sleep most of the flight.


Posted By: born and bred
Date Posted: 06 September 2011 at 4:35pm
[QUOTE=hissing sid]Did you ever fly into the old HongKong airport?
As for the USA. I drive back and forth over the Canda US border weekly with no problems.
  The old Hong Kong airport was scary. You could see what they were   eating on their dinner plate.


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local born and bred


Posted By: big baggles
Date Posted: 06 September 2011 at 5:45pm
i have flown in and out of alicante regually too, - sounds like you had a bad experience eaton...no wonderi t put you off !
 
copenhagen is an interesting approach too....


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need a stella and i need one now !


Posted By: Eaton
Date Posted: 06 September 2011 at 7:40pm
It became very obvious there was something badly wrong when we heard 'brace brace brace' as we started skidding slightly sideways, if that makes sense!
 
It wasn't helped by the look of abject terror on the face of the very young flight attendant and even when we did safely stop, while still on the runway, the fact that the whole plane could hear her vomiting in the galley!
 
I managed to fly back to the UK the next week but didn't get on a plane again for quite a while...


Posted By: big baggles
Date Posted: 07 September 2011 at 6:14pm
enough said..............

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need a stella and i need one now !


Posted By: Bucks Fizz
Date Posted: 10 September 2011 at 12:04am
Okay everyone, we arrived in Dan Diego on Weds evening around 7pm their time and were the only flight in the arrivals hall. Around 100 of us stood in 6 lines in front of 6 desks looking at 12 immigration officers who studiously ignored us for around 30 minutes. Mothers with crying babies left the queues and went and sat on the floors. There was no air conditioning operating in the arrivals hall (yet it was functioning very well elsewhere in the airport). No reasons were given for the fact that no-one opened up the controls. Then eventually the processing began. I timed the passenger processing and it took on average 10 minutes to clear each person - mainly Brits with visa waivers/Estas. This contrasts p*ss poorly with the 15 seconds it takes a UK immigration officer to clear the average US citizen at Heathrow.

The computers were apparently working Ok though the fact that all the passengers were drenched in sweat meant their fingers fogged up the fingerprinting screens, which packed up and eventually the officers realised they needed to clean the screens after each passenger to erase the skin acids.

Many of the officers appeared to have not a clue what they were doing and they had to frequently ask their colleague in the next kiosk which buttons to press on their computers. Given their ages however, it was hard to believe they were trainees. There were no other flights in the hall ahead of us and no others arrived whilst we were being processed (TG) so the fact that it took an hour and a half for 12 officers to land 50 passengers (we were midway in the queue) is inexplicable. It could only be due to either extreme incompetence or a deliberate attempt to humiliate and subjugate their only allies in the world. Being mostly British of course, nobody complained. Or perhaps this was because we had all read the awful press reports of what US Homeland Security did to the elderly British cruise tourists who were left for half a day in the heat of the sun on a quayside in Florida with many of them collapsing and others being told to urinate over the dockside if they couldn't wait. Their crime? They'd dared to ask why they had been forced to wait 4 hours for the immigration computers to be switched on. As a reprisal for their rudeness, they were made to wait another 4 hours before clearance started.

All things considered, this was my first, and will be my last, arrival at San Diego airport. San Francisco will have my business in future. Immigration staff in Kenya and Pakistan could, in my experience, run rings around their San Diego counterparts. And I always thought performance standards was an American phrase!   


Posted By: Dave-R
Date Posted: 10 September 2011 at 12:28pm
Australia on the other hand are great! I recently visited and it was quick and the immigration staff were human, having a laugh with everyone etc. Im quite a big guy and they were telling me not to eat too many of their kangaroos, etc etc. Unlike the robot like Yanks.


Posted By: born and bred
Date Posted: 10 September 2011 at 7:01pm
Originally posted by Dave-R Dave-R wrote:

Australia on the other hand are great! I recently visited and it was quick and the immigration staff were human, having a laugh with everyone etc. Im quite a big guy and they were telling me not to eat too many of their kangaroos, etc etc. Unlike the robot like Yanks.
 I agree. I have visited Oz yearly for the last 6 years. Always friendly.
 I was in America very recently and our American hosts all stated that their homeland security were horrendous,unfriendly,unhelpful.


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local born and bred


Posted By: Eaton
Date Posted: 10 September 2011 at 7:18pm
I must admit that the longest queue to get into a country I've ever experienced was at Auckland airport.  However the officers were laughing and chatting to anyone who initiated a conversation and even though I was slightly short tempered after such a long flight and absolutely desperate for a nicotine fix I completely understood the reason for the delay. 
 
My brother-in-law admitted that he'd previously worn a pair of boots in his packed hold luggage and hadn't washed the treads, so they asked him to unpack his case and take the boots out so that they could disinfect them but this was done with the minimum of fuss. 
 
I only hope that our arrival into Auckland in Jan next year is as 'easy', particularly as we are flying in one hit this time!


Posted By: Chillies
Date Posted: 15 September 2011 at 12:35am
update on my weekly German experience, with the usual ruthless no nonsense manner today on my return from Munich, Steffen, Damen, Gruppen, Militärmusikoffizier - Anwärter bag search/x-ray spotter number 4 saw my hair gel was 105ml not 100ml, this after at least 26 visits to Europe this year so far. ....
Said dangerous toxin/device was removed from my hand luggage and thrown into clear German waste bin.

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www.chalfontchillies.co.uk Twitter: @chalfontchillie Facebook: chalfontchillies

Often to be seen walking his Staffie Cross and two Chihuahuas so please say hello


Posted By: J.R.
Date Posted: 15 September 2011 at 8:02am
a couple of years ago I flew over about 10 days from Heathrow -> Copenhagen -> Stockholm -> Oslo and back to Heathrow - next week Heathrow to Estonia -> Latvia and back via Austria and it was here they pointed out that I had a "leatherman" multi tool in my hand luggage, which was taken away and given back to my when we landed at Heathrow! so much for all these security checks/scans etc...

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JR was ere


Posted By: big baggles
Date Posted: 15 September 2011 at 2:21pm
i flew to dubai with goods/ graphics supplies for an exhibition, - it was boxed up  as hand luggage and sent with  us,
 
- it was scanned and checked but not opened at heathrow before we  got on the lufthansa flight,
 
- when we got to dubai and  opened the box  along with my colleague - there was the kit we needed including some vinyl graphics- what we did not know was inside the sealed graphics kit  there was a  a scalpel to cut the vinyl with.......scans never picked that up !!!


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need a stella and i need one now !


Posted By: Chillies
Date Posted: 04 October 2011 at 8:29am
I can do a new test next week on our global security reporting as I am going to Qatar then Korea, so both ends of the spectrum.. watch this space

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www.chalfontchillies.co.uk Twitter: @chalfontchillie Facebook: chalfontchillies

Often to be seen walking his Staffie Cross and two Chihuahuas so please say hello


Posted By: big baggles
Date Posted: 04 October 2011 at 9:35am
i will  be in the US at the end of the month too so will be interesting to see what other US destinations are like

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need a stella and i need one now !


Posted By: big baggles
Date Posted: 09 November 2011 at 5:44pm
1 hr 35 mins to get through passport control  at  orlando airport.....
 
 
unlike our border controls which if the news is correct is alittle lax right now !!!


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need a stella and i need one now !


Posted By: Chillies
Date Posted: 10 November 2011 at 9:22am

ours is currently a joke, was pinged at Frankfurt on Monday for shoes.. very sensitive machines those Germans have.. coming back to T1 Tuesday same old story.

IRIS gates turned off (funding cut so they are shutting it)
 
Bio scan passport gates, only 1 out of 3 working (handy hint get in the queue even if you don't have one and you just say oh not working and get bypassed to the human on the other side, saved me 20 mins in the queue)
 
Normal desks only 4 people on at 19.00 massive queue shameful.


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www.chalfontchillies.co.uk Twitter: @chalfontchillie Facebook: chalfontchillies

Often to be seen walking his Staffie Cross and two Chihuahuas so please say hello


Posted By: Chillies
Date Posted: 10 January 2013 at 2:40am
Baggles just so you know it is no better at the moment 1 hour 3 mins to get through Passport control at Vegas Airport on Monday

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www.chalfontchillies.co.uk Twitter: @chalfontchillie Facebook: chalfontchillies

Often to be seen walking his Staffie Cross and two Chihuahuas so please say hello


Posted By: big baggles
Date Posted: 10 January 2013 at 8:04am
how was korea ? - i have a trip to busan coming up ?

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need a stella and i need one now !


Posted By: peaks12
Date Posted: 03 February 2014 at 5:31pm
Homeland Security within America has grown crazy. I have two sides of my opinion to all of this. The reality is that the modern world of terrorism has significantly changed the face of travel forever. I understand why they have measures in place to help with security as they do. However, there is also the fact that America has lost its way. Homeland Security isn't much different than the SS was for Germany during WWII. The only thing America needs is a leader with a funny mustache. I like to call it the United Soviet States Of AmeriKa. I am certain to have someone probing my brain and tapping my electronics after this.


Posted By: Rich Kid
Date Posted: 25 February 2014 at 8:37pm
I travel to the US around 3-4 times a year and whilst there also take internal flights and I must say I've always found security checks ok - yes there are occasionally queues but hey that's what you get with air travel nowadays. Flying down from Denver to Tampa in January I flew United and was pleased that my boarding pass was printed with a TSA pre-check which meant a much easier passage through security. I asked the guy why I didn't get this flying over on BA from Term 5, he said that BA hadn't joined the scheme. Pity, it makes life easier.


Posted By: big baggles
Date Posted: 26 February 2014 at 3:50pm
flying into boston recently the checks were thorough
 but we as passengers were processed quickly, i had no issue at all , much better than atlanta and dallas,  and a million times better than orlando !


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need a stella and i need one now !


Posted By: Dave-R
Date Posted: 26 February 2014 at 3:58pm
You should try flying to the USA with a Muslim friend like I did. We were treated like Jack the ripper. All we were doing was going to see a boxing match.



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