
Passport queues vex airlines - prostoalex
https://www.economist.com/business/2018/08/18/passport-queues-vex-airlines
======
komali2
>Airports are not helpless. In 2014 Dallas-Forth Worth airport in Texas paid
for extra automatic passport gates to slash queue sizes. And airlines around
the world often pay a small sum per passenger to speed business-class
customers through special passport-control lanes. Many governments would
gladly shift the cost of passport checks. Too gladly, reckon some airports,
who fear the entire bill for passport control may eventually be dumped on
them.

We've got TSA holding the nation's airports hostage back in 2015 by slowing
EVERYTHING down in order to get more funding. Many airports/airlines now
offering "expedited security" as part of their "pay for the oxygen on the
plane" price plans, this on top of CLEAR/PreCheck. So now TSA knows they can
do that, if they don't get the funding from the gov they'll just leverage
schemes to get it from airlines/airports, as the article indicates.

I remember as a kid, my parents scrounged together enough cash for disneyland
tickets, the flights there, and some nights at a motel. There wasn't room in
the budget for comfort items like food on the plane, which back then was free.
I can't go full grumpy old man mode cause I'm only 27, but damn does it feel
like it will only get shittier and shittier to be poor in this country.

~~~
toomanybeersies
> There wasn't room in the budget for comfort items like food on the plane,
> which back then was free

Are you allowed to take your own food on the plane in the USA?

When the airline doesn't give me free food, I'll often just pack my own. It's
usually nicer than what they'd give me anyway. I'd rather a nice homemade
bacon and egg sandwich than the shit they serve you on a plane.

Departing from New Zealand I've never had an issue bringing my own meal.
Obviously I can't bring something to drink, but I can buy something after
security.

The one that annoys me more than food is charging for luggage. Especially
since some airlines will add a luggage fee for every leg of the trip, which
can add up to be very expensive.

~~~
abrowne
You definitely can bring your own food — except I guess maybe not something
yogurt that's a "gel"? That's what I do and it's _always_ better than what
they're serving, as long as you don't mind it not being hot.

~~~
ams6110
Not sure how much food you can bring through security control. I've never
tried more than a pack of gum.

You can buy food once you're in the secure area, of couse, but it's generally
quite expensive.

~~~
Symbiote
I just made a special meal request, at the bottom of the page:

> If you can't find a suitable meal from the options we offer, you're welcome
> to bring your own food. Please ensure it doesn't require heating or
> refrigeration. Also remember to plan your meal around the security screening
> restrictions on liquids, pastes and gels.

So go wild!

------
hectormalot
> In Europe’s Schengen passport area, they have grown since more thorough
> checks were introduced last year owing to the migrant crisis.

For those not from Europe: You don't actually go through a passport check to
travel between the Schengen countries (This is almost the whole EU minus the
UK). Airlines - especially budget airlines - might sometimes check to make
sure you haven't given your pass to someone else, and there will be a security
check, but there is no border/passport check (also no e-gates).

Regarding the quote from the article above, that basically means that a lot
(almost half) of the passengers are _not_ facing this problem because they are
traveling between Schengen countries.

(off topic: great example of one of the benefits of the EU, in my opinion)

~~~
chimeracoder
> For those not from Europe: You don't actually go through a passport check to
> travel between the Schengen countries

Not exactly true. France has reinstated border control since 2015 due to the
"emergency". Germany is talking about reinstating border control in places
like Bavaria, though it's unclear whether they will have a hard border
control, or whether they will simply profile people at the border.

~~~
GFischer
Apparently they're only temporary controls... I drove from Spain to France a
few weeks ago... there was a sign saying "France"... and that was it.

I had to Google for this: [http://www.blather.net/theblather/2016/01/crossing-
border/](http://www.blather.net/theblather/2016/01/crossing-border/)

~~~
kweks
Depends on the border. For about two years after the attacks, the A1 (major
highway between France and Belgium) was restricted to one lane, with barrier
chicanes before reaching the border. Eventually the three bored policemen at
the border left, but the barriers remained for a very long time.

------
notatoad
Putting the cost of increased staff and gates onto the airports seems like a
pretty obvious solution. Short queues can be a competitive advantage for an
airport, and are obviously something that airlines (the paying customers at an
airport) value. Increase the gate fees to cover the extra cost of more customs
agents. It's the easiest way to pass the cost on to the actual users of the
service, whether they're tax-paying residents or non-tax-paying visitors.

I'm not sure what the airport's argument is that they _shouldn 't_ be paying
the full cost of passport control services. A service that only benefits
travelers shouldn't be coming out of the general tax revenue funds.

~~~
hughrlomas
Competitive advantage for an airport? Airports are chosen based on
geographical location, not service. Most people live near one major
international airport. There isn't some large market of with airports
springing up all of the time, they are dictated by regulatory barriers and are
natural monopolies.

Passport control doesn't benefit travelers, it hinders them. It benefits the
security of the nation, which is precisely the purpose of the general tax
fund.

~~~
FearNotDaniel
Not at all. I live about halfway between two "major" international airports,
each of which is about two hours by train. Or I have a local airport - ten
minutes by city bus - with a much more restricted flight selection. If my
destination is London, that in fact translates to a choice of five airports at
the other end; and if I decide, for example, that Heathrow is my preferred
arrival point, that means not only will I have a very different experience
depending on the airline and hence which terminal, but also means I can decide
between a direct flight from either of those more distant origins, or to take
connecting flights, and thus have a further choice to make in each direction
when I may be able to choose between changing in Frankfurt, Vienna, Hamburg,
Cologne or Brussels. For a frequent flyer there are so many factors to
consider in choosing routes, airport competitiveness is very very important
indeed. Recently my home airport had me fill in a passenger survey while
waiting to board, designed to elicit my reasons for choosing that airport;
they hadn't even begun to scratch the surface of the multiple variables I need
to take into account when booking flights.

------
iamatworknow
It'd be nice if there was an actual global version of the American Global
Entry/Nexus/Sentri system. I know coordinating between many countries would be
a pain, and a lot of people don't like the idea of being added to a government
registry and having biometric scans and a background check run, so such a
system is probably not feasible for everyone.

However, I have zero regrets signing up for Nexus due to frequent travel to
Canada. Nexus includes Global Entry and TSA Precheck for less than the price
of Precheck alone. Flying between the US and Canada usually just requires a
couple of taps on a screen and you're done with customs, and often times
driving over the border I don't get any questions at all.

I do understand that we shouldn't have to pay for this expedited service and
it should be available to everyone, but I'm constantly surprised by how many
frequent US/Canadian travelers don't even know it's an option.

~~~
travelbuffoon
No, thanks. Countries should serve people by making border crossing fast for
everyone. GE is an ugly workaround, and shouldn't be needed in any civilised
country (and yes, my country has an efficient border, the absolute longest
I've seen or even heard of on the news is a 15 minute wait due to unlucky
arrival timing - EU/EFTA still had no wait on that occasion due to automatic
border gates).

~~~
monksy
I think it should only be used to get back into your host country. When I'm
travelling part of the nice thing of going there is to get a stamp in your
passport.

~~~
saryant
Stamps are going away. Lots of countries no longer stamp passports, at least
in some situations. Hong Kong, New Zealand, Australia, Canada, South Korea.
The US will generally not stamp their own passports.

Frankly, I'm fine with it now that the US no longer lets you add pages to an
existing passport.

------
subculture
I couldn't read the full article, but the Mobile Passport app has improved my
traveling experience through passport control. On a recent trip from Europe to
SFO, the regular line for US citizens was really long, the Global Entry kiosks
were full, but there was no one in the Mobile Pass line. We went through
passport control in under 3 minutes.

~~~
joezydeco
Same here. The Mobile Passport app has been around for what, over two years
now?, and the % of people that actually use it is still very very low.

Last border crossing at MIA the Mobile Passport reader guy was standing there
all by himself. Cleared in 30 seconds.

~~~
ryanburk
the first rule of the mobile passport app is _don 't talk about mobile
passport_!! it is great, generally the same experience as global entry. and
I'm worried that if more people use it, it will become as busy as everything
else.

------
Someone1234
This is definitely the result of unintended consequences.

They added specific lanes for nationals to use; nationals are the taxpayers
therefore they're the ones who are most listened to. As a consequence the
nationals lines were always fast and well staffed, while the international
entry lines grew longer and longer.

If they hadn't have split the lines, everyone would be on the same "side" and
complaints from nationals would result in improved passport control for
everyone.

~~~
thaumasiotes
I just entered the US at SFO a couple of weeks ago.

There were big (permanent) signs up directing us to a citizens line and a
noncitizens line. They weren't taking that especially seriously; there was
also a staffer at the fork directing citizens into the noncitizens line and
noncitizens into the citizens line.

My guess is that this was an attempt to balance the waiting time in each line.
It was a horrible system, largely because the system was barely able to admit
noncitizens at all. Both lines crawled as the noncitizens stepped up to a
booth and were s-l-o-w-l-y fingerprinted and eventually waved on their way.

Contrast what happened just a couple weeks earlier when I entered China.
Fingerprinting was required for entering noncitizens there too. But you didn't
have it done at the booth while everyone waited in line behind you. You got
yourself fingerprinted at one of a row of unmanned machines, got a receipt
from the machine, and then went to get in line. All the immigration booth did
was take your receipt.

~~~
rogerbinns
What they do is as a plane arrives, they direct people to the appropriate
side. The citizens line process a lot quicker, so as they get empty, some non-
citizen queuers are told to move over to the now mostly empty citizen lines.
Then the next plane's passengers arrive and the whole process is repeated. ie
the primary goal is that citizens go quick, and the others are second
priority. But as you noticed, it starts getting messy as multiple plane
arrivals overlap with each other, queues progress at random rates, and it
isn't a particular effective system anyway. The booths work the same way as
you described China's, but have additional complications (eg people using the
app, and the receipt.)

I had the misfortune of arriving on an international flight to SFO when they
first got those booths. Some official decided to constantly shout and berate
everyone trying to figure them out (he would keep contradicting the screens,
or interrupt people trying to read them etc). Thankfully I haven't experienced
that since.

And it used to be a lot worse. Instead of a single long queue, there would be
long separate queues for each desk. It became quite an art trying to deduce
which lines would process quickly.

~~~
thaumasiotes
> The booths work the same way as you described China's, but have additional
> complications (eg people using the app, and the receipt.)

But when you use the Chinese fingerprinting machine, you're not holding up the
immigration line. This makes a big difference in queue times! SFO is wasting
an incredible amount of passenger time by making everyone in line wait for
everyone else to get fingerprinted.

~~~
rogerbinns
The last time I went through the lines at SFO there was roughly speaking a
queue for the machines, and then after that lines for the booths & officers.
If one person took 10 minutes on a machine, it wouldn't matter since the
machine queue still flowed as did the booth queue. Have they reorganised it
again?

~~~
thaumasiotes
When I entered on the 12th, ten days ago, there were no freestanding
fingerprinting machines. (Actually, there was one, but it wasn't in use.)
Instead, the immigration booth itself took your fingerprints using a much
smaller machine. This is, obviously, a logistical disaster, and I'm stupefied
that they were using a better system and threw it out.

~~~
rogerbinns
Thanks for the clarification. My experience has been that every time I use the
machines, they then retake the fingerprints and retina at the officer anyway.
(This is possibly because I'm a green card holder.)

They also seem to have a wide range in staffing levels, and adjust what is
"open" based on that.

You are right about the efficiency. Quite simply none of the people involved
at that level have any incentive to improve it. It won't improve their pay and
promotions, and the less efficient the bigger an empire can be built by
managers.

------
chimeracoder
> On August 13th Virgin Atlantic grumpily published data showing that Heathrow
> hit its target for processing more than 95% of non-EEA passengers within 45
> minutes on only one day in July, with some waiting up to 156 minutes

I was one of those people, traveling to Heathrow at the end of July on an EU
flight (from Berlin) on a US passport. It took more than 90 minutes to reach
the front of the queue.

You'd think that it wouldn't take long to process people traveling from the
Schengen area[0], but they have little incentive to make this faster, unless
their domestic airlines (like Virgin Atlantic) start complaining.

[0] I'm aware the UK isn't a Schengen country, but that's the point: if you're
going to have passport control at the border, _and_ if you're going to
separate out people traveling on EU passports (which is more or less analogous
to people from Schengen countries), then why such a delay for travelers coming
from non-EU Schengen countries (like Iceland), or, for that matter, people who
aren't traveling on an EU passport, but are coming from an EU country?

~~~
mikeash
I’ve flown through Heathrow one time. I hope it will be my last. The lines and
the crowding to get through passport control and security were unlike anything
I’ve experienced anywhere else in the world. Thank goodness our destination
has frequent flights from Heathrow, because we didn’t even come anywhere close
to making our connection.

~~~
chimeracoder
> I’ve flown through Heathrow one time. I hope it will be my last. The lines
> and the crowding to get through passport control and security were unlike
> anything I’ve experienced anywhere else in the world.

I nearly missed a connecting flight in Heathrow earlier this year, because it
took them thirty minutes to get seven people through security. I kid you not -
I was seventh in line at security[0], and they were only allowing one person
at a time to unload the contents of their bag onto the conveyor belt. They had
five or six agents all "working" there, and a peak throughput of one passenger
every three minutes.

[0] International flights connecting in Heathrow have to go through security
again, even though they've already gone through security at their original
point of departure.

~~~
toast0
> [0] International flights connecting in Heathrow have to go through security
> again, even though they've already gone through security at their original
> point of departure.

That's not terribly uncommon, or particularly unreasonable -- security
standards and implementation vary significantly in different countries, and in
as much as security screening is useful, you'd want to redo the screening with
the local standards, unless you have separate facilities for international
flights arriving from countries you know do a good job and other countries,
but the customs/passport control section is probably shared among all
international arrivals.

~~~
United857
Transiting at Frankfurt airport, I didn't have to reclear security when flying
from the US, but I Had to reclear when transiting through London Heathrow.

So apparently Germany trusts some countries' airport security, but the UK
doesn't.

~~~
chimeracoder
> So apparently Germany trusts some countries' airport security, but the UK
> doesn't.

They apparently don't trust Singapore. I was on a flight from SIN->JFK that
had a stop in FRA (we got off and got back on the same plane). We still had to
go through security.

~~~
gaadd33
I don't think it's Singapore specifically, seems like all flights incoming to
the US always have to pass through some sort of secondary security. For
example, MUC->DUS->JFK required additional security when boarding the JFK
bound plane (and it was additional even for those entering the airport at
DUS).

JFK->SIN though we could get off and didn't have to worry about any security
or immigration.

------
cdeez
This is because they have reduced staff numbers with the introduction of
e-gates, so there is less flexibility to process peak queues. The KPIs are
also very generous, 45 minutes is too long.

As an Aussie this pisses me off entering the UK. When Brits travel to
Australia they can use e-gates, but the same courtesy is not extended back to
us. Frequent travellers can pay to use the gates, but not everyone has that
option. If the strategy is to use the gates they should make them as available
as possible.

~~~
EliRivers
_When Brits travel to Australia they can use e-gates, but the same courtesy is
not extended back to us._

Sure can. When I flew to Brisbane, no human inspected my paperwork. From plane
to train, the only human interaction was someone taking a stub of something
that came out of a machine and waving me through. Really smooth.

------
superseeplus
CBP has a pretty handy app to lookup wait times at US airports at
[https://awt.cbp.gov/](https://awt.cbp.gov/) . Looking at the wait times for
JFK for the past week, the maximum wait time for non-US citizens exceeded 120
minutes often.

~~~
redisman
Even US Citizens don't really get by much faster. I'm often corralled into the
USC line because of some weird green card expiration issue and it's certainly
not any faster.

~~~
tehlike
Get global entry.

~~~
barrow-rider
I'll second this.

I don't like the idea of a play-to-play line, but in a practical sense I
travel too much to not make use of this.

~~~
tehlike
Precisely. I am looking for other countries to adopt this for us-bound
flights. Some airports have preclearence, for example. Would be great if i
could use global entry in istanbul. I literally had to go through 5 security
checkpoints just to get on flight.

I am going home goddammit, i wont do any harm.

------
slashink
This is true for me.

I've cut my business travel a significant amount over the last years as a
result of the time it takes to clear the border control in the US. In the past
i used to fly the route between Europe and the US maybe 10-11 times a year,
now at most 2. I will say i've always been met with respect when finally
reaching the end of the line but the line has grown on average where a couple
of years ago i had to stand maybe 45 minutes to being consistently over 2
hours. Came in to SFO a month back and had to wait in the line for 4 hours and
30 minutes. That's adding another 4 hours and 30 minutes to an already long
trip.

The end result of this is that i absolutely try to avoid flying if i can,
doing as much i can online.

~~~
Johnny555
I've cut my business travel _within_ the USA due to the variable time it takes
to get through security -- on a good day I can breeze through in 20 minutes or
less... on a bad day it can take 90 minutes or more. So to be assured of
making my flight, I need to plan for the worst.

Even real-time security wait times are little help since even if it shows 20
minute waits 2 hours before the flight, an equipment problem or personnel
shortage can make that wait much longer before I get to the airport.

~~~
sjg007
Sign up for TSA precheck.

~~~
Johnny555
I did. Well, Global Entry. Still subject to equipment failure or other
slowdown. Clear might be better, but I refuse to spend $179 to avoid an
inefficient process I'm forced to endure - it's easier to just stop flying.

------
angott
It would be great if that line chart with the wait times at Heathrow could be
extended with the number of passengers who land, and the number of employees
working border services. I would like to see if there is a correlation between
the number of employees and the wait time, and if passenger numbers have
increased or remained steady.

------
throw7
Some flights you can/must? clear customs pre-flight. It's weird (well, maybe
not so weird, airports are weird legal areas), as you are considered in u.s.
territory even though your still in a foreign country.

~~~
DrJokepu
Not considered US territory, CBP preclearance is just that, a preclearance.
It’s still under the jurisdiction of the host country. The CBP can and
sometimes does conduct inspection on precleared passengers at the actual US
port of entry.

~~~
blahedo
> _The CBP can and sometimes does conduct inspection on precleared passengers
> at the actual US port of entry._

How? I'm pretty sure that when I've flown pre-cleared from Canada and Bermuda,
the arrival was to a non-international gate, opening directly out into the
airport rather than via the side hallways that take you to border control. So
if they wanted to check you on entry, what do they do, meet you at the gate?

Or am I just misremembering all this?

~~~
DrJokepu
They can conduct inspections right at the gate. It’s uncommon, but it happens.

Typically when this happens, the cabin crew announces that the CBP is
conducting inspections outside the gate and asks passengers to get their
travel documents ready. Outside the gate CBP officers will instruct passengers
to form one or more lines and then inspect everybody’s travel documents.
Sometimes they only approach certain people and let most passengers walk by.

------
monksy
That was the article?

They're just reporting that there is an airport that is having issues with
queue size and Dallas paid for more agents?

------
dsfyu404ed
So there's not money available to pay someone $18/hr to perform data entry and
stamp passports but there is money available to pay someone $18 an hour to
grope people and lecture them about what they can and can't bring past
security. Top notch prioritization right there. Where is the oversight? Who is
letting this happen?

~~~
dang
Can you please not post shallow dismissals or ideological rants to HN? A
substantive discussion needs to start out better than this.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

