Automated Passport Kiosks Haven't Solved All the U.S.'s Arrivals Delays
Skift Take
Sure, cutting the average monthly wait time by more than 40% is a significant improvement. But you can bet the international travelers still waiting in those one hour or two hour-plus lines will make it their mission to bad mouth their experience to anyone who will listen.
Automated passport control kiosks can recognize faces, measure height and take fingerprints but apparently they can only dramatically reduce average wait times at some of the U.S. airports using them.
Automated passport control first rolled out for international travelers at Chicago's O'Hare Airport in July 2013 and since then 23 other U.S. airports implemented the kiosks in their U.S. Customs and Border Protection international arrivals areas. When the kiosks debuted in Chicago and a few months later at New York's JFK Airport, U.S. officials asserted they would slash average wait times by as much as 40%. They've appeared to deliver on that promise at some airports while most have seen mediocre success.
At JFK airport the average wait time for international travelers to complete the two-step arrivals process, using the kiosks and then showing the receipt travelers receive to a Customs Officer, is about 18.5 minutes so far this month based on Customs data. That's a 65.9% decrease from the 30.7-minute average wait time in March 2013 before the kiosks launched at JFK and this puts JFK at the top of the leaderboard in terms of which airport can claim the most success from the kiosks.
However, the improved overall monthly average wait time doesn't mean JFK completely overcame its notoriously long Customs wai
