The Mole gets a telling off from US immigration
TravelMole’s Graham McKenzie off again. This time to the Windy City….
"So I am sitting on the Virgin Atlantic airbus ready to arrive at ORD (Chicago O’Hare ) for the start of the TravelMole Yacht Regatta winners trip and it has been the most pleasant of flights. Lounge pass at LHR, new Premium Economy seat, fantastic audio visual system, great crew and adequate refreshment. All good then. We land on time and taxi to the gate …marvellous. This is where the problems begin to happen.
Having disembarked, all of the passengers are met by an almighty queue in immigration. Shortly before our VS flights arrives a Cathay Pacific plane has landed and each and every one of their passengers are in line before us. The majority do not speak English as their first language, are armed with sheaths of documents and do not have electronic visas. Great. The mood of the VS passengers remains calm but frustrated as there are eight immigration officers and the queue is moving surely, but slowly. The debate starts within the queue as to why the USA has such a reputation for this, be it Miami, JFK, LAX or almost any of the major airports it seems to be always the same ..long queues and not just recently. They are famous for it !!! Does it put you off travelling to the States? Possibly not, but it certainly does not help. One of the minor advantages of standing in the queue, and we are now at 30 minutes and counting, is that you can people-watch and observe their reaction to what is obviously a frustration. One guy who was totally chilled was dressed in what can only be described as an Irish Version of Cameo (the 1980s group, not the a small piece of jewellery) . Totally in black with a green cod piece, or as the others were saying Irish budgie smugglers (this is the type of chat you get in a long queue).
Three quarters of a hour into the wait things begin to change. Immigration officers are getting up and walking about. Great – new recruits, new booths , faster! Wrong – less booths, less officers, longer wait. I quite riskily ask to speak to the Supervisor. "Are you telling me that you are only going to have three officers serving all these people? There must be over 300 here waiting?" I was fully expecting to be dragged away into a small corner, forced to listen to non-stop country and western for three hours, and put to the back of the queue. "Sir, do you know what day it is?" replies the stern fierce looking protector. "Yes 11th September’"…and at that moment I remembered. "We are having special operations and protecting the United States of America is our top priority." Not much you can say to that.
Still took too long (two hours) but after a quick trip in the cab down to the lovely lakeside Hotel and a few chill pills all is good again. Moral – if you’re flying to the States and expect to get through immigration quickly on 9/11 ………. don’t."
Hotel: www.essexinn.com
Airline: www.virgin–atlantic.com
Bev
Editor in chief Bev Fearis has been a travel journalist for 25 years. She started her career at Travel Weekly, where she became deputy news editor, before joining Business Traveller as deputy editor and launching the magazine’s website. She has also written travel features, news and expert comment for the Guardian, Observer, Times, Telegraph, Boundless and other consumer titles and was named one of the top 50 UK travel journalists by the Press Gazette.
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