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Aduana disservice at the airport.

by kathyMN @, Saint Francis, Minnesota, Monday, July 18, 2022, 11:29 (433 days ago) @ midalake

I arrived on Saturday on an American flight from Phoenix. There was an Alaska flight in front of us and a United flight right after us. I noticed another Alaska flight arrived after United. Immigration took about 30-45 minutes. They had one person handling most of the international arrivals. One man went on break shortly after we arrived. He returned from break before we made it to the front of the line. There was one person handing national arrivals from the US as well as outbound AA and United paperwork. She took a few people as time permitted. Normally, we see 3-4 people on duty on a Saturday.

Regarding Customs, I have seen the line like this only once before. So frustrating! It took 1.5 hours for us to get through the Customs line. We noticed that the area was also short handed. We witnessed the employee watching the conveyor belt permit one family through at a time, then we would walk them to the light, and then he would search the bags if they got the red light. They only had one other employee doing the searches. If he was busy, the conveyor guy did the search. One other employee was basically communicating with the people in line and another was just standing by the exit. I don't know what her role was but it seems she could have been put to better use. By the time we got our turn, another employee appeared. I assume he also had just returned from break. We put our bags through the scanner. Something triggered a question about what was in our luggage and how much cash we were carrying. Everything was permittable and below limits as always. They did not have us push the button. We were sent straight to get searched. He thoroughly looked through everything in our checked and carry on bags. He only asked one question: What was the cost of a necklace? It was an inexpensive piece of jewelry. Not sure why they would ask about personal items anyway. What a huge waste of time. I wonder if they put in some type of quota for searches above and beyond those that get the red light.


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