International visits grow, even as foreign travelers to U.S. complain

Airlines at Sea-Tac Airport are adding two new international flights starting next week, just in time for the busy summer travel season. At the same time, foreign travelers are increasingly complaining about long delays at Customs, some vowing never to return.

Sea-Tac Airport saw a 10 percent increase in international travelers last year. The new Delta service in June will make 19 international non-stops flying in and out of Sea-Tac. But what travelers experience when they arrive in the U.S. can be long, exasperating waits to clear Customs.

While foreign travelers landing in Seattle rarely wait more than 30 minutes, times of more than an hour are more common at the busiest international hubs. It has caught the attention of President Obama, who vows to work with airports, airlines and governments “to do more to improve the traveler experience and reduce wait times for folks entering into the United States, all without compromising our security.”

A survey by the U.S. Travel Association revealed many complaints about delays and missed connections, with 43 percent of international travelers saying they would advise others to avoid the United States because of the difficult entry process.

“And that was really alarming to us and I think that that was alarming to the president when he saw that kind of survey; there’s something that needs to be done there,” said Patricia Rojas-Ungar of the U.S. Travel Association.

On a weekday, just after noon at Sea-Tac, flights from Paris and Amsterdam were arriving on the heels of a flight from London.

“All the airlines want to arrive at the same time so we get this peak operation in the middle of the day,” said Senior Manager of Airport Operations Nick Harrison. By June, he said, “we may be parking some aircraft out on the tarmac and busing people to the terminal.”

The exact type of thing that international travelers complain about.

To that end, Sea-Tac has installed 14 Automated Passport Control (APC) kiosks to speed U.S. and Canadian travelers on their way.

“And then when they come up here, they basically just show their receipt that they get (from the APC) to the CBP (Customs and Border Protection) officer and then they go downstairs and collect their luggage and out the door they go,” said Mike Milne, with Customs and Border Protection in Seattle. He said it takes just a minute or two to enter your information into the system.

That technology is cutting wait times in half for some travelers through Sea-Tac Airport.

Sea-Tac is competing for international business with Los Angeles and San Francisco, and Harrison said Sea-Tac must add to one advantage for travelers between Seattle and Seoul, Hong Kong and Tokyo.

“It’s about 600 or 700 miles shorter on the route and thus about an hour and 10 minutes quicker so that’s one of the key advantages we have,” he said. “We want to be in a position to make it not only quicker but also more convenient.”

In 2013, the U.S. saw a record number of international tourists.

“I want to turn the 70 million tourists who came last year into 100 million each year by the beginning of the next decade,” said President Obama.

It’s big business. Rojas-Ungar, with the U.S. Travel Association says international visitors spend an average $4,500 here. “Money that’s going directly into our local communities to help rebuild our economy.”

Billions of dollars in tourism and trade are at stake.

“It’s imperative that we process these people as quickly, effectively and efficiently as we can to keep this economic driver going,” said Milne.

Congress has authorized 200 new border protection agents and Sea-Tac will get a share of those, but many won’t be hired until 2015. Programs such as Trusted Traveler, which requires pre-registration, can also speed up the re-entry process.

Sea-Tac Airport is counting on continued growth of international flights. In the next four years, the airport plans to build a new international entry facility, add new gates for wide body jets and increase international capacity by 65 percent to 2,000 passengers an hour.