I do use those apps too. But I'm not using an app to intermediate my experience with Chipotle.
This post reminded me that one time that I was flying, I wound up on a different flight than planned, and I was concerned that my bags might not be going with me. I was told I could track my bags with the Delta app. I was eventually able to log into the airport wifi and download the Delta app. To my astonishment, it worked. And just now I checked my phone and the Delta app is still there.
Does it still know where your luggage is?
heebie has elevated her house to such a degree that she is now legally an airline
On Saturday, I am getting on a plane (actually two planes, because of a connecting flight) and then two more planes the following Friday. I can tell you I am thrilled to have my flights supervised by Musk's FAA, and also looking forward to the reception that we get as Americans in Mexico.
You could save time by taking them simultaneously, instead of sequentially.
Re: OP, that was my attitude to the TSA precheck service from whenever it launched until 2022. At some point they added competing services and now you have to compare three or more lines and if we're not flying at peak hours it feels like they only actually save 30 seconds. If the experience gets any worse or more complicated, renewing the TSA thing might be a tough decision.
Re: 8, yeah, Cassandane and Atossa flew in February to California and back, and the flying part was a lot more stressful than usual.
8: I was there late last December - the people were lovely. They're generally able, I think, to distinguish people from government.
I get enough use out of some of the airline apps that I download them sometimes, but then I uninstall them. Easy to reinstall as necessary with password manager on my phone. If I flew more often maybe I wouldn't do this, though.
TSA precheck doesn't save as much time as it used to, but it still has the advantage of sending you through the metal detector instead of the body scanner so that no one's imaging your genitals.
I discovered that my nice boots have a steel shank, so I have to take them off for the metal detector.
When traveling with my son, they let us both go through the metal detector even with no precheck. I think they had rules about looking a children's genitals back then.
It was a more innocent time before pizza.
I wonder if the need to staff both precheck lines & pleb lines has inadvertently contributed to better coverage & less waiting for all.
Like maybe before an airport would have an average of 2 lines running over the course of the day, and now they have 3.
I doubt it. Small airports just don't have precheck lines.
Small airports don't have as much security congestion to begin with, no?
If two planes are going out at the same time, it can be bad.
I wonder if the need to staff both precheck lines & pleb lines has inadvertently contributed to better coverage & less waiting for all.
Not really IME. Most airports already had at least 2 lines so Precheck just means switching one over. For a while there was a big difference but so many people have Precheck now that the wait times are pretty much equalized, if not tilted back in favor of non-Precheck. (And as Moby says, at smaller airports it's all one line anyway.)
In Omaha, which is probably the airport most people use the most often, the precheck line gets you in front of a bunch of people getting their ID scanned but then you feed into the same line for screening carryon luggage.
If you're a middle aged man flying, wear a jacket. A suit is too much. A nice jacket and a friendly demeanor gets you treated like an important customer.
At Albuquerque airport, Gate E doesn't even have TSA screening. Boggled my mind. Last time I saw that was at Lincoln, Nebraska a few decades ago. There, my flight to Minneapolis did have to go through screening at Minneapolis.
My passport expired and I don't know where my birth certificate is* and I don't have a real ID, so I'm a bit relieved I'm not going to be able to fly for a while. But fortunately, my work isn't pressuring me to.
*I'm not worried about it being truly lost, but not looking forward to digging through my parents' papers for it. I might have an easier time finding the canceled checks from the 90s my mom still hasn't thrown out.
27 surprises me. Lincoln definitely had screening every time I was flying out of there. Certainly always since 9/11. Which was less than a few decades ago, but still long ago.
At Albuquerque airport, Gate E doesn't even have TSA screening. Boggled my mind.
Is that the one with the small regional flights? Those operate under a different section of the FAA regulations and don't require TSA screening.
Lincoln might have flights like that. I've never taken them.
I don't know where my birth certificate is*
In most parts of the US, $10 and a month's wait will let you get a replacement birth certificate from your state's vital records office. Mentioning in case that's less hassle than digging through your parents' papers.
30. Yes. They're the small "commuter" flights. As was the one from Lincoln to Minneapolis. I'm most used to the Northeast's major airports and there I don't think the small commuter flights escape screening.
Like most people, I have flown from Lincoln to Minneapolis. You can see the Larry Craig restroom and connect to Pittsburgh. But it was on Northwestern, or at least their regional affiliate.
I've flown non-TSA for Hawaii inter-island flights. Before boarding they have you hold your luggage and stand on a big scale to measure the weight.
32: What I find funny is that in a bunch of places $10 and a month's wait will get you *anybody's* replacement birth certificate. Here in MA they're public records unless the parents were unmarried at the time of birth, in which case only direct family can get them.
I'm not sure what I want to do with this, but I do find it amusing.
Like most people, I have flown from Lincoln to Minneapolis.
It is a very popular route.
Haven't taken one in many years but Cape Cod 10-seat puddle jumpers (Hyannis/Nantucket/Martha's Vineyard) are non TSA, including putting one passenger in the copilot seat with a sign on the control stick that says, "Do not touch." There's also a small window next to the copilot seat that can be opened. Once someone asked, "What happens if I open the window while we're in the air?" and the pilot said, "It would get windy inside the plane." (They fly at something like 2000 feet, non-pressurized cabin.)
10: Don't do TSA pre-check. Get a Global entry. Not just helpful with bypassing the regular TSA line, you also clear customs much faster. I got through JFK customs in like 20 minutes in 2019! You do have to go for an interview the first time and get finger printed. It also counts as Real ID and is the size of a driver's license, so I've been able to put off getting a Real ID driver's license.
https://www.cbp.gov/travel/trusted-traveler-programs/global-entry/card
My TSA precheck expires next year and I expect grief of some sort around renewing it. At some point DHS might also try declaring California (and a lot of other states) Real ID noncompliant unless the state makes me change my driver's license back, which would be a fun fight. Sorry to be holding my neighbors hostage!
My Precheck expired a while ago and I haven't renewed it. I probably won't.
42: I assume you mean passport control as opposed to customs? For customs, either you get checked or you don't, and I don't know how Global Entry would help with that.
Precheck (via Global Entry) saves me a ton of time. The major annoyance now is airports where there's a Clear line feeding into the front of a Precheck line with enough Clear passengers to slow the Precheck line way down. I've succumbed to a free year of Clear membership to avoid that, but I kind of hate myself when I use it and I really don't feel like paying for it when the free year expires.
You can see the Larry Craig restroom
I would surely feel compelled to take a wide-stance selfie if I'm ever there.
44: Probably. You don't have to fill out paperwork upon entry. I certainly got enhanced screening when I returned alone on a 1 way ticket after my father in-law's funeral.
I have Global Entry and TSA Pre-check. The one time I used the TSA pre-check line I got pulled out for "random" screening (and groin pat down) so it didn't help at all.
So far, it has slowed me down, as they no longer have a London check, and you need to do it in the US, so the first time I did it, it took ages (hours). I'm hopeful it'll speed it up in future, but it won't help with the third world shithole that is Dulles and the 2 mile customs line that some airports seem to have.
They also don't give you any kind of physical card anymore, at least for non-US citizens. It's just some kind of flag on a system somewhere and on your ESTA if you are a visitor.
That's the way TSA pre works for me. You need to enter the number when you buy the ticket.
50: If you had one of those handy-dandy airline apps Heebie was talking about, it would save the number for you.
That's how they get you. Harder to compare between airlines.
48: oh, thanks, but of course I'm just hyperventilating about things that haven't happened yet. Maybe benign neglect will win out in the end!
the third world shithole that is Dulles
Now with extra measles!
49.3: That's how it works for me too. I make sure I put my number in when I book, then I make sure my boarding pass says "Pre-Check" somewhere.
52: Meh, easy enough to maintain accounts with whatever airlines you fly. Doesn't mean you have to book the same one every time. Also hotels and especially car rentals.
Not really. I stopped that and went to Google a couple of years ago. But I'll probably go back now that I'm degoogling to a certain extent.
It probably makes a difference that I only have one viable airline choice for 90% of my trips, and the rest are long enough that status benefits outweigh minor price differences.
58: Yeah, I'm in the same situation (now literally the same airline, in fact).
Yup, and yours is the other one I've mostly used, so even less comparison shopping in the future for me.
49: Canadian airports used to have that when I flew every year. You could go through US customs in Canada.
The founder of my hometown was influential in the formation of the Canadian Confederation, though he was far from the only negative incentive provided by America.
24: AIMHB, people complain about the TSA, but I've never had as bad an experience with them as I did flying out of Omaha in '97, when the pre-TSA private airport security guard freaked out about a tiny wooden skull keychain I had and basically accused me of snuggling shrooms.
IMHMHB my worst US airline security experience, which involved explaining why I had an ice axe in my hold baggage to about 12 local policemen none of whom knew what an ice axe was. While standing on the apron next to the airliner they had just hauled me out of.
I've never bothered with any of the You Can't Believe It's Not Border Control! options but then I've never found the US airport experience all that bad; sure there's a queue but there's a queue wherever you go.
I do wonder about that weird carpet, presumably TSA-issued, they all have though.
PS I am going to be taking a break from the knifecrime frying pan for a visit to the orange guy fire next week and again in the first week of April. Silly Valley for the first week, Las Vegas (baby, as I believe I am required by statute to say) and then San Diego second time around.
The 45 minute queue at JFK immigration was not great, but the mood was lightened by the procession of small round airport security staff waddling up and down the line shouting that they apologised for the unusually long wait, but it was due to several aircraft landing in a short space of time. Which they clearly felt was an unforeseeable Act of God that no one at JFK International Airport could have been expected to predict.
64-68 are all a run of enjoyable comments.
re: 67
It has taken me 3 hours+ to clear customs and immigration at Dulles before, and that was when I was returning on an existing visa and could use the US citizen lines. The routine customs and immigration experience is longer than anywhere else I've ever been. I can remember one really shit night at Heathrow when it was about an hour, and another pretty rubbish one transferring flights in Stockholm, but otherwise, the US is in a league of its own.
I've never had horror queue experiences at any airport in any country that's anywhere near as bad as the US. Or the experiences where I have to exit and then go back in again taking (literally) an hour or more followed by a panicked run to get to the connecting flight. Not to mention the worst customer experience I've ever had when they cancelled my flight at about 11pm at night and then point blank refused to provide any assistance.
I can genuinely rant about how shit the US airport experience is for hours. Although the rudest security has been at Schiphol, where I've twice had amazingly aggressive security experiences.
70: I knew someone who walked the wrong way in Nigeria, pre 9/11, and the only way they were going to get on the flight was to bribe the guard.
70: see, this is why it is vital always to tip your immigration officer. 20% is customary.
70 matches my experience so precisely. My wife spent about three hours in a customs crush coming back to the US during COVID (and got it, of course); I've been in a line so long at Heathrow that I started to wonder if it ran all the way to Gatwick, and a security guard at Schipol stepped to me in a way that in any other context would have been a prelude to punches being thrown.
64: My brother rode the baggage carousel there, though and behind the wall. Didn't even get arrested.
I always suspected Natilo snuggled shrooms! No judgment here!
re: 73
... and a security guard at Schipol stepped to me in a way that in any other context would have been a prelude to punches being thrown.
Yes, exactly this. Just unnecessarily rude and aggressive, and not just in the Dutch sense of "we are going to be pricks, but we are going to get away with it because we have a national cultural of 'bluntness' which we think lets us off the hook".
Changi is amazing, though. I get up from my seat on the aircraft, start walking, and apart from a fifteen second pause at the immigration desk I don't stop walking until I get into a taxi. Zero queueing!
: re 77
I've had some good experiences at small US regional airports (in contrast to the big international hubs), and in Prague* and a few other smaller European airports (Genoa, Pisa, etc). The last time I flew into Prague I had to get to the car hire place (different building) before it closed at 10pm and my flight was severely delayed. I disembarked the plane at 9:50pm and I made it.
* although it can be rubbish for British flights post-Brexit, if a load of EU flights are landing at the same time.
The last couple of times I went to Prague I took the train, which I can definitely recommend on all counts except, I guess, speed.
Recent development work has unfortunately slightly reduced the appeal of my absolutely favourite small regional airport - they've built an actual hard-standing runway there rather than just having a field that they chase the sheep out of before your flight lands.
After landing on a flight from Mumbai to Phuket, the airport staff directed us the wrong way and poured a plane load of (mostly) Indian nationals directly to baggage and the exits without going through the whole immigration/customs process. We were at the back so they got us in time to avoid any problem, but holy shit were they in a panic trying to find the rest of the plane.
I hope that's pronounced like I think it is.
Or the experiences where I have to exit and then go back in again taking (literally) an hour or more followed by a panicked run to get to the connecting flight. Not to mention the worst customer experience I've ever had when they cancelled my flight at about 11pm at night and then point blank refused to provide any assistance.
I did that just two weeks ago. Had 17 minutes after clearing customs. We sprinted through and caught our plane. They re-opened the plane doors for us.
Before we caught our plane, they had already texted us our tix for the next morning, and hotel and meal vouchers. It was just a tiny, sad example of how the Biden administration had fixed something and it was about to go to shit again. Also knowing that Biden/Buttigieg probably wouldn't get credit for it.
I've literally taken down three posts just now, because I can't decide what's urgent.
Do we need a Mahmoud Khalil thread? Is this on the brink of becoming a really big thing, or is it a depressing thing that blends in with all the other absolutely awful things? It feels a little like a new line has been crossed.
We should have a thread about some economic issue in Africa that most of us aren't even aware of yet.
See, that's why that one seemed more flexible. I realized I'd lost track of it from the weekend, though, so it seemed urgent because I fell behind.
I'm just joking. I don't know what to do.
You all are going to fixate on Mahmoud Khalil regardless, so I say do that.
Which is not to say he is unworthy of attention. That looks really bad.
Ok, it's up. I've saved Nick's, and Mossy's, and my own original posts for another day.
Yes to a Mahmoud Khalil thread, every American's hair should be on fire over this no matter what one may think of his views -that doesn't matter one whit.
Don't worry, I'm sure I managed to miss the point in my post.
The other really big important thing is the upcoming vote on cloture for the CR bill, just in case you want to throw another post up.
Or the experiences where I have to exit and then go back in again taking (literally) an hour or more followed by a panicked run to get to the connecting flight.
I've had to do this twice, once connecting via Toronto and once connecting via Dublin (not the Ohio one) on the way to the US. In Toronto, the longest line turned out to be at Tim Horton's, not customs.
In Dublin, I got a laugh from security when they asked how long I'd be in the country and I said my flight leaves in an hour: "Had enough already, have ya?" They were nice enough to put me in the priority queue with no wait, whatever that was called pre-9/11.
I've tried Tim Hortons several times in both the U.S. and Canada. I don't get it. It's worse either Dunkin or Starbucks.
Bad airport experiences:
Stockholm-Arlanda: I had memories of watching the beginning of the 2006 Lebanon War with a Carlsberg Hof here but it bit back on a trip to Ericsson HQ. Five hours of delay before we finally rolled, picked up speed, and rejected the take-off. The captain then made an announcement something like "I'm not taking responsibility for this flight unless we get some REAL maintenance or another aeroplane." Back we went, deplaned, queued up at the gate again, eventually arrived in Gatwick about four o'clock in the morning on the other aeroplane (I checked).
London-Heathrow: This event. "I am a human being."
London-Luton: Stuck for hours due to EasyJet shagging the dog on the way to Berlin. Fortunately EU261 kicked in with a full refund but I didn't do what I said and spend the money on an Otto Dix print when the opportunity presented itself.
Amsterdam-Schiphol: Heineken Grand Café fed me a meatball that gave me the worst stomach upset of my life. Very good fortune: the cramps hit two hours after I got home, not in the air or on a tube train.
London-Gatwick: All flights cancelled by a woman with a megaphone in the middle of the south terminal after someone's bad landing spread bits of tyres over the main runway, they switched to The One They Built In 1978 And The County Told Them They Can Only Use It On Emergencies As A Treat, then that turned out to be covered in FOD as well. Bizarre, Ballardesque crowd scene as hundreds of angry white people demanded refunds from her.
This is five but thinking about it, there are others but they're just boring delays, horrible weather, or off-airport transport fiascos.
Yeah, I assume a good chunk of the CBP officers at passport control are full of rage that their job is boring and they aren't out in a desert pointing their gun at people, so they hassle people to alleviate both discontentments. And they focus on foreigners and non-white citizens for this of course. (Last-but-one time I returned to the country, the officer had a small duffel bag at his desk, which had a MAGA patch that just happened to be facing out the window at us.)
People rave about Changi and Singapore Airlines, but the last time I was there we were delayed in a gate lounge for hours on end. I eventually dared to ask if we could leave the lounge, and found that the airport had closed around us. SQ eventually handed round orange juice and formal letters of apology (with embossed gold text on the letterhead).
Have I told the story about how I ended up at the Canadian Forces Base at Goose Bay, Labrador? We mere passengers did not get details until we were safely on the ground again, but they did prompt a future Secretary of the Army to say "The lesson of this story is to buy Boeing."
NB: This was back when Boeing was more devoted to aerospace engineering than to financial engineering.
I once had a four-hour delay with Singapore Airlines at Changi. They gave us lunch boxes and juice and profuse apologies, and the delay gave me time to go to Toast Box and visit the butterfly garden.
My favorite big international airports, for efficiency, helpful staff, delicious, reasonably priced food, and good transit options, are Incheon and Haneda. The worst airport in the world is LAX. There is no worse airport on earth. It is a civic embarrassment. It brings shame upon all of humankind. Every time you travel through LAX, your entire life is worsened, by a small or great amount.
102: My wife and I will do a lot to make our connections anywhere but LAX. The worst time was when they canceled our flight to Fresno and put us on an airport shuttle van for 5 hours. After all, they just had to get us to the airport... we'd only imagined that we were buying plane tickets.
Yeah, I assume a good chunk of the CBP officers at passport control are full of rage that their job is boring and they aren't out in a desert pointing their gun at people, so they hassle people to alleviate both discontentments. And they focus on foreigners and non-white citizens for this of course.
It's been a while since I crossed the Canadian border on land, but my impression over the years has been that most of the people working there are quite happy to be dealing with people who are mostly OK to enter the country without anything beyond a quick documents check and NOT having to chase around the desert.
The worst airport in the world is LAX. There is no worse airport on earth. It is a civic embarrassment. It brings shame upon all of humankind. Every time you travel through LAX, your entire life is worsened, by a small or great amount.
LAX is not my favorite airport, but it just ain't that bad. Getting into and out of LAX is more painful than most, but the airport itself is not nearly as bad as its reputation. And I say that with my last few times in and out of LAX being literally the second-most distant gate in the place.
73, 76- At Schipol we were going through security and our 10 year old forgot that he had bought a souvenir folding knife, maybe a 2.5" blade, with his name carved on it and left it in his carry on instead of putting in his checked bag. They pulled him out of the line and lectured him about how he could go to jail for having a knife in his bag and they would make an exception this time and I'm like, Way to make a kid cry in front of hundreds of people.
I'm sure going through US customs is horrible for many people, and it's been a decade since I've traveled internationally, but in my 20s-30s (late 90s/2000s), I got hassled enough in Europe that I would brace myself for something to happen when entering or exiting at an airport, or even crossing a land or water border. I only went through a strip search once (flying out of Belgium), but I got aggressive questioning a few times (Heathrow, I think more than once, also once upon entering Canada by car), had my passport taken for "further analysis" while I waited on a bench outside the office at a ferry crossing (Finland from Estonia, they eventually let me in), I've been pulled out of line for questioning when no one else was checked (Denmark to Sweden via ferry), and I've been one of the few people or, once, the only person in a train car to have my passport checked (into Switzerland from Italy, into France from Luxembourg).
I don't think the Schengen agreement applied to all of those borders at the time I crossed them - definitely not for Switzerland and Estonia-Finland - but outside of the airports and the Finland entry into the EU, none of the other border crossings involved everyone having their papers checked. In Finland, I felt like the border agent saw himself as defending the EU itself. He kept asking me why I didn't have certain stamps from EU countries I had visited earlier in my trip, implying that my passport was illegitimate, and I kept explaining that those countries don't usually stamp US passports anymore if they're not your EU entry point.
The only time I saw anyone really hassled in Europe, they were African and had an ID that didn't have a photo.
I'm amazed by the complaining about Schipol--if I'm flying Delta/Air France I will do anything necessary to connect through there instead of the hellhole that is CDG.
109: When I got strip-searched at the Brussels airport, the other guy in the check-in line who got pulled aside for a search was almost certainly from west Africa, based on his accent (combined with the fact that he was black). While we were waiting for security to take us off for our respective searches*, he asked me if I'd been singled out too. I said yes and I'm pretty sure we were thinking the same thing, that it must have been a strange coincidence that the only two people at the check-in who didn't look European** were getting searched.
*I guess it was considerate of them to make sure that I could get on my flight in case the search came up empty, so they walked me all the way to the gate first. They even let me take my checked bag with me and checked it at the gate afterwards.
**To be fair to airport security, the guy who sat next to me on the flight said he got an extra search at the gate, though it sounded like just an extra metal detector scan. He was white, Belgian, maybe in his 40s, and took the approach to baldness where you just shave your head completely. He said he often got searched because he looked like a skinhead.
They only looked at the cover of my passport.
Congratulations to Alex on being the only commenter to spell "Schiphol" correctly.
70 to 113.
Also, we're doing spell checks now?
Schipol, you asshole. Schihpol. SCIPHOL. SCHIPHOLL.
SKIPPALL. SCHOPHIL. SHIPPLE.
SKYPOOL.
re: 113
I also spelled it correctly.