... in response to How much time?, posted by beattledog on Apr 29, 2002We came through Miami in January.Our travel agent booked us on a flight for 2 hours after we landed,which should have been plenty of time.We just barely made the flight.
I think part of the problem was we came in from Colombia on a Saturday morning,landing at noon.There were huge crowds of people going through immigration.I got right through in the citizens line,but my wife and step son took about an hour getting through the immigrant visa line.Then we had to pick up our luggage,go through customs and then recheck it.The airline,American,was savy to the problem and had people out on the floor in the lobby checking luggage.
We flew American from San Francisco to Miami,then on to Cali,and returned Cali to Miami,Miami to San Francisco.American told us there would be no food Miami to Cali 20 miniutes before boarding.Coming back from Cali American was so incredibly slow getting us checked in(2 hours)that we didn't get to eat before we left,got no food except chips to Miami,then had no time to eat before boarding the plane to San Franciso.We got up at 4.30 AM and finaly got to eat on the San Francisco plane at 3.00PM.
I don't think the delays were 9/11 related,just slow American agents and huge lines at customs for non citizens.
We almost missed our flight when we left San Francisco going down.That was 9/11 related.They were searching all the bags right in the lobby and for some reason one of our bags went through the search and then someone sent it through again,another 15 miniute delay.
I got to plug profiling here.If 100 percent of the people we are watching out for are Arabs why do they think they need to mess with the rest of us?Some form of "no we don't profile" political correctness?I think profiling is legit if you have a good reason for it.
Hopefully your travel agent can advise you,plus the airlines have to approve the connection when you book it.If you miss the plane they fly with a partially empty plane.Thats why they had agents out in the lobby checking our bagage right on the cart and then taking it.
Another pet peive,some guy in Los Angeles had a gun in his carry on,he split without the gun and they still shut down the whole f---ing airport??Cops just go way overboard shutting things down.Our time means nothing to them,they will do things that are totally uneccesary and out of proportion to the risk.Some motorcycle cop dumps his cycle on Rt. 101 south of San Francisco 5 years ago or so,they shut the whole freeway down for 8 hours while they fly in a special investigation unit from Sacramento.Heads would roll if I had any say about that one.
Pete
