My trip from Cotonou, Benin all the way back to Los Angeles yesterday was surprisingly smooth.
I flew from Cotonou to Istanbul via Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire on Turkish, connected to London on Turkish, then flew from London to Los Angeles via Washington on United Airlines.
I expected chaos in Istanbul. It was calm. I expected chaos in London. It was calm. I expected chaos in Washington. It was calm.
All day I had seen headlines in leftwing, rightwing, and mainstream news outlets about how horrible immigration lines were in the USA. I think this Drudge Report homepage about sums it up:
I was bracing for the worst, but met with this in Washington Dulles:
(once again proving why Washington Dulles is my favorite U.S. gateway)
The airports I visited were not ghost towns. Quite the contrary, the Turkish Airlines lounge was full as usual, Heathrow Terminal 2 was quite crowded as British and Irish rush to the United States before today’s cutoff. Even Washington Dulles was fairly crowded for a Sunday night.
As for questionnaires, I did not fill any out. Had I entered Turkey (versus transiting) I would have had to fill one out. I did have to fill out the blue DHS arrivals form, even with Global Entry.
I was sent to secondary screening, though it wasn’t coronavirus related. Instead, I was traveling with my second passport and United automatically populated the info from my old passport into the app when I checked in. The discrepancy took a couple minutes to resolve. My passport was placed into an orange lock box and I was directed to a secondary screening area.
Those who had visited China, South Korea, or the Schengen Area over the last 14 days were also directed to secondary screening, where a health test was administered.
CONCLUSION
I braced for the worst, but yesterday was a very smooth day of travel, actually no different than a “usual” day. I don’t doubt things were bad earlier in the day at many U.S. airports, but the situation was quite calm in Washington Dulles.
Did you travel into the USA yesterday? What was your experience like?
Why did you have clams at all those airports?
That’s exactly what I was wondering. It was clam.
Hahahaha! 😉
Clearly he was hundry!
See what I did there?
Covid-19 business update
*************************
Dear republican colleagues,
These are trying times, but we remain open for business. We have decided to keep our online offices on this blog open but have increased the frequency of wiping our keyboard.
We continue to hold you in deep derision and hatred. We still think you are despicable human beings and nothing will change that and we hope you will continue to enjoy our attention. We will get through this together and come out on the other side, hopefully you weaker (or dead) and we stronger.
In closing we could have not have asked for better customers to hate. You barely qualify as human beings. See you soon online,
Debit
Will let you know how Thursday travel is. Leaving Frankfurt to SFO and then to Burbank. Hoping some of this craziness dies down as folks adjust. Keep Calm and Mind the virus. Will probably be the new T shirt out there
Happy you had an uneventful trip; you should think about proofreading a bit better.
“I was expected chaos in Istanbul. It was clam. I was expected chaos in London. It was clam. I was expected chaos in Washington. It was calm.”
Did you not get the word? Stay home.
Keep Clam and Debit on, I guess 🙂
I think its not fair for you to compare yesterday with last week as the rest of Europe has been banned as of Friday so the majority of the travelers flew in already — right now its only an handful of flights mostly to move US permanent residents back. Everything else has already been cut as of Friday even London/Ireland has already seem some trimmings before the ban went into effect.
This week US airports should be smooth sailing for the most part until the federal government decides to temporarily ban non-essential state border crossings (a very real possibility).
Regardless – I agree with you about IAD being a breeze for the most part. ORD is a terrible international port of entry with or without coronavirus. I had to spend an hour blocked in the corridors even with Global Entry because the main immigration hall was at capacity. Also I believe IAD has two customs processing facilities (main terminal and C/D) and most major international port of entries have multiple processing facilities. LAX has four, JFK has four, ATL has two, MIA has three, EWR has two, and so on. ORD only has one and a poorly designed one at that and the Illinois governor should be equally ashamed of his administration about the state of ORD terminal five as he is with the federal government’s handling of this situation.
Not everyone returning through Dulles this past weekend was so lucky.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/03/15/chaos-dulles-airport-shows-how-not-handle-pandemic/
By Cheryl Benard
March 15, 2020 at 8:27 a.m. PDT
“Like thousands of Americans and Europeans scrambling to get to the United States before the travel ban went into effect and flights were canceled, I flew back to the United States from Vienna on Friday. Arriving at Dulles International Airport via London, I encountered a case study in how to spread a pandemic.
Upon landing, I spent three hours in a jammed immigration hall trying to decide which analogy fit better: the ignorant Middle Ages during the plague years or the most chaotic airport in the least developed country.
There was no attempt to enable social distancing; we were packed closely together. Two giant queues of people — one for U.S. citizens and green-card holders and one for foreign nationals — wound their way through the cavernous hall. I counted and came up with approximately 450 people in each section, for a total of just under a thousand. Many were coughing, sneezing and looking unwell.
When I inched closer to the front, I could see that a scant six immigration desks were in service. Two additional desks to the left had less traffic. These are ordinarily for people in wheelchairs; now, the wheelchairs were mixed in with the rest. When I asked a security guard about the other lines, he told me they were for people with a confirmed corona diagnosis. There was no separation for this group — no plastic sheets, not even a bit of distance. When your line snaked to the left, you were inches away from the infected.
I recently flew to Qatar for a meeting. Immediately upon disembarking, passengers walked past a temperature measuring device to identify those with a fever, so they could be segregated out before entering public areas. Dulles had no such plan. Instead, after the agent examined your passport, he pointed a thermometer device at your forehead. By that time, you would have spent three hours in close contact with hundreds of other people. Even the way the lines were organized, snaking around, might have been designed to ensure that one sick person would expose the maximum number of others.
Some of the agents were asking people to use the fingerprint screen — all fingers, then the thumbs. Mine didn’t, but I watched the adjoining one and was astounded to see that the screen was not wiped, sprayed or in any way sanitized between individuals, or indeed at all during the hour I had it in my line of sight. My agent asked me how I felt (the true answer would have been upset by your colossal ineptitude) and if I had been to China or Italy. (I had not.)
That was it. No instruction to maintain a two-week self-quarantine. No phone number to call if I felt symptoms — standard in Europe for several weeks. After being immersed in our three-hour virus incubator, we were unleashed on the American public, free to mingle. This had to be going on all day and further into the night, as flights kept landing and the immigration hall kept filling with new passengers.”
I agree, IAD is great for coming through immigration. Especially since they installed the facial recognition. As a British LPR I really appreciate being able to get through there quickly especially when I have to get over to Alexandria to catch Amtrak. Will be so much nicer when the Metro Silver Line runs directly to Dulles although now I’m reading that it’s been delayed again until next year.
Oh the media…….
Wow…My friend and her husband came into Phoenix from LHR yesterday and all they were given was a form asking if they had come in contact with anyone with coronavirus….and if they had been to China/South Korea in the past 14 days. That’s it. Welcome back !
I had a similar experience. I flew from India to the US via CDG and it was extremely smooth. Flights were empty (plenty of social distancing), Global Entry made immigration/customs a 5 minute affair. 15 minute delay when CDC boarded the aircraft and distributed forms. No traffic in the middle of rush hour either.
The lockbox looks like a retail anti-theft device.