7 ms·

The moment I could afford to, I started avoiding connecting flights in the United States wherever possible. The user experience is appalling, from parking lot

The moment I could afford to, I started avoiding connecting flights in the United States wherever possible. The user experience is appalling, from parking lot to gate. I have visited places that take security very, very seriously (Israel, Russia, China etc.) and all manage to make the entire process more bearable than the United States. I don't really understand why they can't make their airports function.

gonzus 8y ago
Same here. In fact, I have actively avoided travelling to the US for the past four years, which means I have mostly missed conferences. I would really like to travel there again, I have friends and favourite places, but the hassle is just too much, even with a passport that makes things easier than average. Sad! :-)
idontpost 8y ago
Because foreigners are not welcome. Seriously, this isn't hard to understand. The US is an unfriendly, hostile nation. While most Americans, individually, are not unfriendly or hostile to foreigners, the government is decidedly so and has been for decades.
- _red 8y ago
  Not true. The southern border is wide open. However you need to be the right socio-economic stratum to be accepted. We are mainly interested in importing slave chattel, who can be used to pick avocados, clean the rich houses, and vote democrat. Its the modern plantation 2.0 system.
  - nraynaud 8y ago
    I live in Arizona and my experience is not that of an open border. There are packs are rich republicans with guns scouring the border to play tough, defoliation by helicopter, occupied-France style CBP checkpoints, random Chinese citizens being killed in the streets, and a town of laws against foreigners.
    - adventured 8y ago
      That doesn't match up with the facts on illegal immigration figures at the borders. There have been over a million apprehensions by CBP at the borders in the last three years of people who are not in the US legally. Those are just the apprehensions, a huge number beyond that are not caught. The best estimate is that several hundred thousand people are crossing the southern US border illegally per year and not being caught.
      - deleted 8y ago
        [deleted]
      - civilitty 8y ago
        More than half of all illegal immigrants overstay Visas (and arrive by airplane). Annual apprehensions at the border are down by like 80% since the mid-2000s - and not for lack of trying.
  - metalliqaz 8y ago
    That screed has so many internal contradictions it made my eyes cross.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- xenihn 8y ago
  * Unless you have lots of money and plan to spend/invest it in the US
  - crankylinuxuser 8y ago
    The "and" is critical in that statement.
- ad_hominem 8y ago
  I mean we did have 3,000 people die from airplanes being hijacked and flown into buildings - the TSA didn't exist before then. Unfortunately our gov't is like an overreacting immune system inflaming the entire body and causing unnecessary damage to functioning systems. edit: Also Canadians in here, let's not pretend like CBSA's shit doesn't stink
  - idontpost 8y ago
    You should try reading the link first. The TSA is not the issue under discussion. It's Customs and Border Patrol that's the issue.
    - ad_hominem 8y ago
      You should try reading the HN guidelines first that say not to accuse someone of not reading the article. Sometimes discussions can meander outside the original article's context.
  - bparsons 8y ago
    CBSA uses the exact same security standards as TSA, but manages to make the airport security process much, much faster. I think it comes down to airport design and staffing resources.
    - cylinder 8y ago
      It's just Americans being really had at organisation, training, planning especially in government. They also hate government so underfund it so they hire bottom barrell people to be agents.
- wyclif 8y ago
  It's not that foreigners aren't welcome. If that were true, we'd just ban foreigners and refuse to issue visas. It's a lot simpler and possibly more unpleasant to think about than that: we don't care about you. Foreign tourism isn't important to us. You don't pay the bills for all this bureaucracy, and he who pays the piper calls the tunes. You don't call the tunes, US taxpayers do.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
jrockway 8y ago
Legacy. The US designed air transportation and had an airport in every city before any thought was even given to the concept of transit. The airports are designed to get people to and from the United States, not for people on a hop between other countries. Yes, this is a competitive disadvantage. I don't think there is a lot of money around to solve this problem. I'm sure if, say, the Port Authority wanted to have a sterile transit area in JFK, they could probably convince the federal government to allow it. But they don't care. Nobody with money cares. Therein lies the problem.
- overkill28 8y ago
  Yeah most of the people commenting in this thread probably come from countries where major airports are used primarily for international transit, and run by for-profit companies that want to maximize transfer passengers. They have no concept of an airport getting 90 million domestic passengers a year.
  - willhslade 8y ago
    I'm assuming this is Atlanta? Got a source?
    - overkill28 8y ago
      Yeah > International passengers traveling to, from and through Atlanta in 2017 rose by 4.86 percent to 12,033,865, while cargo operations were up 5.66 percent. Overall, Hartsfield-Jackson hosted 103,902,992 passengers last year... https://www.bizjournals.com/atlanta/news/2018/01/30/hartsfield-jackson-worlds-busiest-airport-for-20th.html https://www.bizjournals.com/atlanta/news/2018/01/30/hartsfie...
      - willhslade 8y ago
        Wow. I'm surprised that 90% is domestic for the busiest airport in the world, but I'm Canadian. Thanks!
  - 8y ago
madengr 8y ago
Because of political correctness. All the airplane terrorism has been committed by Muslim males under 35, therefore the TSA has to search little old ladies.
United857 8y ago
I'm guessing the sheer volume of air travel in the US is one problem. Example: I travelled to Israel a couple of times for work. Their security is world class, but they take a more predictive approach: having trained people interview all passengers even before checkin and look for subtle body language clues or inconsistencies, as well as your nationality/ethnicity/previous travel to gauge the level of risk. This is effective but it wouldn't be able to scale for a country as big as the US (300M vs 8M people); these are trained professionals, not folks that get paid a low hourly wage as is the case with the TSA.
- lazerpants 8y ago
  Using race as a proxy for suspicion would probably scale just fine, however, there are other reasons it is unlikely to work in the US.
  - alistairSH 8y ago
    Not the least of which is ethnic profiling is probably Unconstitutional and unlikely to pass judicial review.
slowmovintarget 8y ago
Mostly because it's theater instead of security.

gonzus 8y ago

Same here. In fact, I have actively avoided travelling to the US for the past four years, which means I have mostly missed conferences. I would really like to travel there again, I have friends and favourite places, but the hassle is just too much, even with a passport that makes things easier than average. Sad! :-)

idontpost 8y ago

Because foreigners are not welcome. Seriously, this isn't hard to understand. The US is an unfriendly, hostile nation. While most Americans, individually, are not unfriendly or hostile to foreigners, the government is decidedly so and has been for decades.

_red 8y ago
Not true. The southern border is wide open. However you need to be the right socio-economic stratum to be accepted. We are mainly interested in importing slave chattel, who can be used to pick avocados, clean the rich houses, and vote democrat. Its the modern plantation 2.0 system.
- nraynaud 8y ago
  I live in Arizona and my experience is not that of an open border. There are packs are rich republicans with guns scouring the border to play tough, defoliation by helicopter, occupied-France style CBP checkpoints, random Chinese citizens being killed in the streets, and a town of laws against foreigners.
  - adventured 8y ago
    That doesn't match up with the facts on illegal immigration figures at the borders. There have been over a million apprehensions by CBP at the borders in the last three years of people who are not in the US legally. Those are just the apprehensions, a huge number beyond that are not caught. The best estimate is that several hundred thousand people are crossing the southern US border illegally per year and not being caught.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
    - civilitty 8y ago
      More than half of all illegal immigrants overstay Visas (and arrive by airplane). Annual apprehensions at the border are down by like 80% since the mid-2000s - and not for lack of trying.
- metalliqaz 8y ago
  That screed has so many internal contradictions it made my eyes cross.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
xenihn 8y ago
* Unless you have lots of money and plan to spend/invest it in the US
- crankylinuxuser 8y ago
  The "and" is critical in that statement.
ad_hominem 8y ago
I mean we did have 3,000 people die from airplanes being hijacked and flown into buildings - the TSA didn't exist before then. Unfortunately our gov't is like an overreacting immune system inflaming the entire body and causing unnecessary damage to functioning systems. edit: Also Canadians in here, let's not pretend like CBSA's shit doesn't stink
- idontpost 8y ago
  You should try reading the link first. The TSA is not the issue under discussion. It's Customs and Border Patrol that's the issue.
  - ad_hominem 8y ago
    You should try reading the HN guidelines first that say not to accuse someone of not reading the article. Sometimes discussions can meander outside the original article's context.
- bparsons 8y ago
  CBSA uses the exact same security standards as TSA, but manages to make the airport security process much, much faster. I think it comes down to airport design and staffing resources.
  - cylinder 8y ago
    It's just Americans being really had at organisation, training, planning especially in government. They also hate government so underfund it so they hire bottom barrell people to be agents.
wyclif 8y ago
It's not that foreigners aren't welcome. If that were true, we'd just ban foreigners and refuse to issue visas. It's a lot simpler and possibly more unpleasant to think about than that: we don't care about you. Foreign tourism isn't important to us. You don't pay the bills for all this bureaucracy, and he who pays the piper calls the tunes. You don't call the tunes, US taxpayers do.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]

jrockway 8y ago

Legacy. The US designed air transportation and had an airport in every city before any thought was even given to the concept of transit. The airports are designed to get people to and from the United States, not for people on a hop between other countries. Yes, this is a competitive disadvantage. I don't think there is a lot of money around to solve this problem. I'm sure if, say, the Port Authority wanted to have a sterile transit area in JFK, they could probably convince the federal government to allow it. But they don't care. Nobody with money cares. Therein lies the problem.

overkill28 8y ago
Yeah most of the people commenting in this thread probably come from countries where major airports are used primarily for international transit, and run by for-profit companies that want to maximize transfer passengers. They have no concept of an airport getting 90 million domestic passengers a year.
- willhslade 8y ago
  I'm assuming this is Atlanta? Got a source?
  - overkill28 8y ago
    Yeah > International passengers traveling to, from and through Atlanta in 2017 rose by 4.86 percent to 12,033,865, while cargo operations were up 5.66 percent. Overall, Hartsfield-Jackson hosted 103,902,992 passengers last year... https://www.bizjournals.com/atlanta/news/2018/01/30/hartsfield-jackson-worlds-busiest-airport-for-20th.html https://www.bizjournals.com/atlanta/news/2018/01/30/hartsfie...
    - willhslade 8y ago
      Wow. I'm surprised that 90% is domestic for the busiest airport in the world, but I'm Canadian. Thanks!
- 8y ago

madengr 8y ago

Because of political correctness. All the airplane terrorism has been committed by Muslim males under 35, therefore the TSA has to search little old ladies.

United857 8y ago

I'm guessing the sheer volume of air travel in the US is one problem. Example: I travelled to Israel a couple of times for work. Their security is world class, but they take a more predictive approach: having trained people interview all passengers even before checkin and look for subtle body language clues or inconsistencies, as well as your nationality/ethnicity/previous travel to gauge the level of risk. This is effective but it wouldn't be able to scale for a country as big as the US (300M vs 8M people); these are trained professionals, not folks that get paid a low hourly wage as is the case with the TSA.

lazerpants 8y ago
Using race as a proxy for suspicion would probably scale just fine, however, there are other reasons it is unlikely to work in the US.
- alistairSH 8y ago
  Not the least of which is ethnic profiling is probably Unconstitutional and unlikely to pass judicial review.

slowmovintarget 8y ago

Mostly because it's theater instead of security.