Airport queues

[clive wallace]

Have you recently visited to Japan? If yes, can you tell me are the queues these days much longer with the fingerprint scanning? Is this the same system used in the United states?

[Ansony]

Have you recently visited to Japan? If yes, can you tell me are the queues these days much longer with the fingerprint scanning? Is this the same system used in the United states?

Came through last month with no problems. The Japanese had a 1 minute wait, the re-entry holders about a 15 second wait, and the visitors' line looked to be maybe 10 minutes. A friend came in on Friday as a visitor and it took less than 5 minutes. He compared the new Japanese system to the US one, but made the distinction that the Japanese system actually seems to work.

[llisa]

My first trip was August 2006; my second was February 2008. If the wait was longer the second time, I didn't notice. Everything went very smoothly.

[Iruka]

Came into Nagoya in March- only our flight, yet took forever as 99% Chinese (flew from Hong Kong). Every once in a while they'd wave someone over to the Japanese line, even though hardly any Japanese came through the whole time, those officers just twiddled their thumbs while we sweated. Heat was cranked up of course...
What really cracked me up was that they have the priority line with pics of pregnant women, disabled etc yet in our queue there were about 20-30 Downs people with their helpers & no one saw fit to give them priority- they just stood in line with the rest of us, occasionally yelling out, which spoke for all of us.
Once we actually got to the desk it was pretty smooth for us white folk.

[Sira]

I just flew back into Narita for the first time since the fingerprinting started. It was a Northwest flight from Shanghai, and I'm guessing a couple of other planes (not JAL or ANA though) arrived at the same time because there was no wait at all for the very few Japanese people coming through, about a minute for people in the re-entry queue (there were about 4 people ahead of me), and what looked like about an hour's wait for the people at the back of the "Foreign passports" line, as there had to be a hundred people in that queue and they were barely moving.

It didn't actually take that long to get fingerprinted and photographed, but they are going to have to put more staff on the foreign passport side or they are going to be constantly faced with a lot of annoyed, tired people- they are doing something wrong.

Going into Shanghai on the other hand I waited about 3 minutes in line at Immigration and the officer actually smiled and greeted me- not what I was expecting at all.

[Ansony]

I just flew back into Narita for the first time since the fingerprinting started. It was a Northwest flight from Shanghai, and I'm guessing a couple of other planes (not JAL or ANA though) arrived at the same time because there was no wait at all for the very few Japanese people coming through, about a minute for people in the re-entry queue (there were about 4 people ahead of me), and what looked like about an hour's wait for the people at the back of the "Foreign passports" line, as there had to be a hundred people in that queue and they were barely moving.

It didn't actually take that long to get fingerprinted and photographed, but they are going to have to put more staff on the foreign passport side or they are going to be constantly faced with a lot of annoyed, tired people- they are doing something wrong.

Going into Shanghai on the other hand I waited about 3 minutes in line at Immigration and the officer actually smiled and greeted me- not what I was expecting at all.

Well, timing is everything. I fly into Vancouver a few times a year. They don't have fingerprinting and the visitors' line is often an hour or more. A smile is quite unlikely, nor does there seem to be any effort to speed things up. Narita is doing ok, I believe.

[ballbags]

Flew into Kansai from Beijing in January. Waited 1 minute in the re-entry line.
No problems. And they did try and be friendly.

Beijing immigration was equally good, though no fingerprints of course, but they have a button on the counter to cast your vote for the guy who stamps your passport. After passing back your documents a little box lights up. You can choose from "greatly satisfied", "satisfied", "poor", or "very poor" service. Excellent idea I thought. In both directions the dude was VERY friendly and courteous. I gave him a "Great".

[davai.davai]

QUOTE=clive wallace:Have you recently visited to Japan? If yes, can you tell me are the queues these days much longer with the fingerprint scanning? Is this the same system used in the United states?

Yes, it is. Say Accenture.