[SwissExPat]

Tom Ottley’s review of the Virgin upper class product in the Nov 2019 edition struck me in that he noted that many PAX faced a 2-hour border processing wait time in JFK.

In the last 3-4 years I have entered the USA at a variety of Airports such as JFK, PHL, MIA, DEN, LAX and BOS using my ESTA and availing of the self service Kiosks to perform my own fingerprinting and photo. This process usually takes 2 minutes and then one proceeds to a special line where an officer does a review of your docs and which is usually a matter of seconds. The total transit time has been between 3 minutes and 20 minutes (in a sample of maybe 10 visits).

Early in November 2019, I arrived in JFK terminal 7 (BA). There was no “Returning ESTA” queue (as before) and the self-service kiosks were covered over (indivually) by a tarpaulin covers. There was only 2 queues (USA citizens/Green card holders and another queue for all other.

According to the official website (www. https://awt.cbp.gov/) 137 passengers waited between 90 and 120 minutes to be processed during the 1500hrs to 1600hrs window on that day.

Does anyone know what has happened to the self-service process for returning ESTA holders? Has there been a deletion of this facility?

[AlanOrton1]

I noticed this on my last two visits to the US in the last few months, both at MCO and JFK T7.

I’m not sure of the reason, though the machines / kiosks were definitely still in operation at MIA in April.

A shame if they have gone as I found they generally helped speed up the queues, particularly at MIA, where I was through so quickly I had what seemed an age to wait for my checked luggage.

[LuganoPirate]

I went through JFK, arriving with Austrian, November 6th. We were then shepherded down a passage divided by these dividers and told to wait due to congestion at immigration. Great i thought. As soon as I joined the queue, the queue was released and then stopped with me now at the head of the queue. 3 minutes later we could go and as a returning ESTA I could go straight to a machine, all of which were working, and 20 minutes from disembarking I was in the luggage hall.

I can only guess there was a technical hitch SwissExPat when you went through?

[FaroFlyer]

It was working last Thursday in LAS

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