Miami airport woes

My husband, Al, and I arrived at Miami International Airport from Panama City on March 4, 2014, at 10:30 a.m., leaving plenty of time before our 1:30 p.m. flight aboard American Airlines to St. Louis, Missouri. 

However, we encountered long lines and faced long walks. We went through security twice. We had to search for our luggage because it had been taken off the carousel immediately to make room for that of another incoming flight.

The next step was to go through Customs, but we couldn’t find the end of the line. It snaked around and around, growing longer and longer. There were hundreds of people in line, probably a thousand or more. I asked an airport “official” if there was any help and he said it was the government’s fault for not staffing enough people to handle Customs.

At that point, we had been in the airport for two hours and our plane was due to leave in an hour. We would never make it and we would be part of a mass of people clawing to get on the next flight, whenever that was. What were we to do? We were looking at the prospect of spending the night in the airport.

We looked for and found the friends we were traveling with. By some stroke of luck, they were near the front of the line. We told them we wouldn’t be on the flight with them and didn’t know when or how we would get home. They encouraged us to slip under the rope and join them in line, which we did. We know it wasn’t kosher, but we were desperate. And we made our flight.

All we can say is that our experience at the Miami airport was very bad.

EMILY MOORE

Greenville, IL

ITN emailed a copy of the above letter to Miami International Airport ([email protected]) and received the response shown below. ITN also wrote to American Airlines and was emailed an automatic acknowledgement of receipt.

As an organization that takes customer service seriously, we are dismayed that Mr. and Mrs. Moore’s visit to Miami International Airport (MIA) left them frustrated and reluctant to fly through our global gateway in the future. Sadly, their experience with the Customs process at MIA was not unique, due to the fact that Customs & Border Protection (CBP) staffing levels have been unable to keep pace with rapid passenger growth at our airport. 

There may be reason for optimism on that front, however. On March 24, I traveled to Washington, DC, and had productive meetings with lawmakers and senior staff at the Department of Homeland Security and CBP regarding the pressing need to allocate the additional CBP officers that our booming international gateway needs. I made it a point to share the Moores’ recent experience — and countless others like it — with our federal partners to underscore the urgency of the matter.

In early April, CBP announced that MIA would be getting 60 additional officers in the following 12 to 18 months. The CBP Commissioner has also committed to visiting MIA to observe the issue firsthand and to working with the airport to find solutions to our short-term staffing needs.

By way of background, MIA is America’s second-busiest port of entry and trails only New York’s JFK among all US airports in terms of annual international passengers. MIA moved more than 20 million international flyers last year, and international passenger traffic here has grown a staggering 30% over the past six years — a growth rate higher than that of any other US airport. 

While these are certainly points of pride for us, they lose much of their considerable luster when we are unable to move all of our valued travelers smoothly through the federal inspection process.

As an airport, we have been aggressive in our efforts to meet the challenges that come with rapid international passenger growth. In recent years, MIA has invested more than $180 million on a new 400,000-square-foot, state-of-the-art, federal inspection facility to house CBP operations and installed 36 automated passport-control self-service kiosks, at a cost to the airport of $3.5 million, to speed travelers through passport control and relieve CBP staff.

We are even participating in a pilot program that allocates up to $6 million to reimburse CBP for overtime staffing above and beyond what their current budget allows. An additional 36 self-service passport kiosks have been ordered to further mitigate wait times for passengers arriving at MIA from abroad.

We look forward to working with CBP and all of our federal partners to ensure that federal inspection areas at MIA are staffed in a manner that is commensurate with our extraordinary growth. All sides recognize that the Moores’ experience at MIA is unacceptable, and all sides are committed to ensuring that it is not repeated. ITN’s well-informed, well-traveled readers can be assured that MIA is doing everything in its power to give our customers the service they deserve.

EMILIO T. GONZÁLEZ, Director, Miami-Dade Aviation Department, Box 025504, Miami, FL 33102-5504