Travelers arriving at the John F. Kennedy International Airport in Terminal 4 can expect to save 20 minutes of wait time at the Customs with the help of new screening equipment.
The Gateway Global Alliance, an organization of industry professionals who address metropolitan region’s airports, introduced automated Customs kiosks four months ago. The 40 kiosks allow one to scan one’s passport before reaching the Customs checkpoint and have halved the wait time at the terminal, even though last year the total number of international passengers arriving at Terminal 4 increased by over 300,000.
The new data also found that Newark International Airport now has the shortest wait-times among the five busiest U.S. airports for international passenger traffic.
“It’s good news for millions of passengers that the public pressure brought on CBP is driving down wait times, but the Federal Government has to make our airports a real priority to fix the problem for the long term... Our airports are too important to the region’s and the nation’s brand to allow the horrific wait times passengers endured last year,” said GGA Chairman Joe Sitt in a release.
Last year, GGA surveyed a number of airports with JFK’s Terminal 4 proving to have the worst wait times with an average maximum lines of 2 hours and sometimes even 3 to 5 hours.
