With the number of international flights operating to the United States, this is bound to happen every once in a while. Still, there need to be multiple failures for something like this to occur.
Paris to New York flight doesn’t go through immigration
This incident involves a Norse Atlantic Airways flight from Paris (CDG) to New York (JFK) on Tuesday, April 4, 2023. Flight N0301 was scheduled to depart Paris at 8:00PM and land in New York at 10:15PM. After a 7hr24min flight, the plane arrived a bit ahead of schedule, at 9:51PM.
I imagine the arrivals experience was easier than most passengers were expecting, because travelers report that they didn’t have to clear immigration and customs at the airport. Rather they were sent right into the terminal, as if they were arriving on a domestic flight (or a flight using a US Pre-Clearance facility).
Following the incident, the airline sent an email to passengers, informing them that they’d have to report back to the airport at 9AM the following morning. Here’s how the email read:
This is a reminder that you have to be cleared by immigration when entering the US. You did unfortunately not clear immigration upon arrival into New York JFK last night. Please report back to Terminal 7 at JFK this morning at 0900LT at Row E. It is in your own interest that you are processed by Customs and Border Protection (CBP) of the US Government. If you have any questions, please contact us at [email protected].
My take on this incident
I have a couple of thoughts on this incident.
First of all, there must have been multiple failures for something like this to occur. Airports are configured in a versatile way, to handle all kinds of flights, including domestic and international ones. That’s why there are typically multiple people checking to make sure that passengers on a flight are “funneled” correctly when they arrive. After all, you want to avoid a mistake like this.
I guess I’m kind of surprised that no passenger quickly made the gate agents aware of this mistake? After all, you know it’s going to be a PITA to fix this after the fact, so it seems better to just have someone bring it up ASAP. I suppose Norse Atlantic Airways probably doesn’t have as many super frequent travelers as airlines like British Airways, where it seems like half of the passengers have Global Entry and are frequent transatlantic travelers.
Also, presumably checked bags arrived in the international immigration facility, so I’m curious how that ended up playing out. I suspect the airline probably figured out the issue at this point, and maybe those passengers did clear immigration?
Second of all, Norse Atlantic’s email seems ridiculously unprofessional to me. The airline makes it sound like immigration is an opt-in process. The airline made a mistake — not passengers — and there should be a more apologetic tone to it, and an offer to reimburse passengers for their transportation costs to & from the airport.
Admittedly Norse Atlantic is an ultra low cost carrier, and probably doesn’t want to pay those expenses. Furthermore, I imagine this is an email someone had to write on the spot at 11PM, and there likely wasn’t any senior manager there to approve it. But still, if you made the mistake, you should also be on the hook for it.
Bottom line
On Tuesday, passengers on a Norse Atlantic Airways flight from Paris to New York accidentally weren’t sent through the immigration and customs facility. This happens from time to time, but it’s extremely rare. Passengers were then asked to report to JFK the following morning.
Mistakes happen, though Norse Atlantic’s tone with its communication seems rather unprofessional to me.
What do you make of this JFK immigration incident?
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