International travelers who arrive at Los Angeles International Airport must expect some of the country's long waiting times to pass through customs along the way to their destination, according to customs data and the US border protection.
Every day, thousands of foreign visitors arrive at the largest travel center in southern California on their way to visit the family, carry out businesses or travel the region. But first, they need to go through customs.
In fiscal year 2024, CBP says that the agency prosecuted more than 420 million travelers in entry ports throughout the country, 6.6% more than the previous year.
Thousands of those people went through Lax, according to CBP data updated daily with the airport with an average of 550 foreign arrivals every hour last summer, which makes it the most busy international terminal in the country at that time.
With the high volume there was also a doubtful distinction: Lax's arrivals had the second time of waiting for the longest customs of any important airport, with an average of more than 30 minutes online from June to August 2024. Only Chicago O'Hare International Airport was worse.
Although the 30 -minute waiting time for foreign travelers was an average in the last 12 months, during the maximum travel periods, the wait was significantly longer, according to the data.
For non -citizens, during the weekend of Labor Day last year, travelers waited for an average of 113 minutes and during the biggest support, at least one unfortunate passenger waited 245 minutes, or more than four hours, to go through customs.
American citizens who returned from abroad had much shorter waiting times in Lax last summer, less than 19 minutes on average, but compared to other important airports, Lax remained the third most slow for customs. Only O'Hare and Orlando International Airport Vio you wait longer.
On July 19, a Tiktok user published a video of an infernal line that leads to customs, subtitled “Everyone returned from their hot summer in euros.”
Two days later, another Tiktok user published an even longer line. His subtitle asked how the city could fix the situation in time to organize the Olympic Games in 2028.
The worst moment of the summer of 2024 to reach the International Terminal of Lax was also the weekend of Labor Day, when the waiting times for US citizens exceeded 74 minutes on average with an amazing maximum waiting time of 205 minutes, more than three hours.
And according to the latest data, the rhythm of the arrivals is recovering again while we are going to the busy summer travel season.
Customs arrivals increased almost 4% year after year in April in Tom Bradley International Terminal of Lax, according to data from Los Angeles World Airports, suggesting that this summer can be even more busy than last year.
“After Covid, we have seen exponential growth,” said Jaime Ruiz, a CBP spokesman. “There have been more flights, more travelers.”
Many arrivals are long distance flights, he said, they often overlap, with climate and programming problems that aggravate overcrowding in customs. “The waiting time is a kind of moving target. It is a daily situation,” Ruiz said.
