Transiting through the US despite COVID

[Salvatore]

I've just found 5 minutes ago and immediately bought a direct flight from Paris to Bogotá in November! I just need to cross my fingers that Air France doesn't go on strike...

In 1996 I flew direct from Paris to Bogotá, and caught a connecting flight to Lima. My luggage, on the other hand, decided to stay in Bogotá.

[ian]

My luggage has been to Colombia. I haven't. I was in Orlando. I would have swapped.

[DaveReading]

SFO is decent...and doesn't, iirc, require you to enter the US to change flights. LAX is terrible and so is all the NY ones.
They're really just bus terminals, scaled up, which is more or less how they functioned in the US, until security became a thing.

No US airports feature 'sterile transit' so you always have to 'enter' the USA with all the bureaucracy that entails. (Possibly some of them did once-upon-a-time on an informal basis for certain routes, but I expect that ended after 911.)

Correct.

"Connecting Flights

Onward passengers should exit the Arrivals Hall through the doors marked "Connecting Flights." Passengers may recheck baggage that is tagged to its final destination at the Baggage Desks located outside of the exit. If an agent is not available, or baggage is not tagged to its final destination, passengers should visit their airline's ticket counter.

Please note connecting passengers exit into the airport's public area and are required to clear security prior to boarding their next flight. Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has information about the security checkpoint process."

https://www.flysfo.com/flight-info/international

[Jakob]

Hmm, I could have sworn that it looked like a regular airport...I'll take it all back.

[Panoramix]

I've just found 5 minutes ago and immediately bought a direct flight from Paris to Bogotá in November! I just need to cross my fingers that Air France doesn't go on strike...

In 1996 I flew direct from Paris to Bogotá, and caught a connecting flight to Lima. My luggage, on the other hand, decided to stay in Bogotá.

In Brittany too inanimate things have a mind of their own!

The rest of France look at us weirdly as when some of us speak about anything ranging from hammers to the sea has its mind and actively acts / thinks alone!

[Panoramix]

My luggage has been to Colombia. I haven't. I was in Orlando. I would have swapped.

I would recommend the other way round, Colombia is a beautiful country!

[ian]

My luggage has been to Colombia. I haven't. I was in Orlando. I would have swapped.

I would recommend the other way round, Colombia is a beautiful country!

That's what I was saying. Orlando is pretty uniformly awful unless you like theme parks and screaming children. It's been in the qualifiers as a new province of Hell for some years, pipped in the last round by Fresno.

[Panoramix]

My luggage has been to Colombia. I haven't. I was in Orlando. I would have swapped.

I would recommend the other way round, Colombia is a beautiful country!

That's what I was saying. Orlando is pretty uniformly awful unless you like theme parks and screaming children. It's been in the qualifiers as a new province of Hell for some years, pipped in the last round by Fresno.

I need to ingest more coffee.

[ian]

I've only been to the bottom bits of South America (Brazil, Chile, and Argentina) – I'd like to do the upper half one day. Orlando had the dubious benefits of a being an all-expenses-paid sales kick-off back in the days they still threw money at the event (we hired Harry Potter World, and added unlimited booze).

[Mr Larrington]

My luggage has been to Colombia. I haven't. I was in Orlando. I would have swapped.

I would recommend the other way round, Colombia is a beautiful country!

That's what I was saying. Orlando is pretty uniformly awful unless you like theme parks and screaming children. It's been in the qualifiers as a new province of Hell for some years, pipped in the last round by Fresno.

Because of my unhealthy obsession with ticking every USAnian state off the bingo card I was obliged to visit Florida.  I decided to eschew Orlando because it would be full to the brim with Disney-obsessed halfwits and Miami because, as any fule kno, it's a high-crime sauna where tourists get killed utterly to DETH for no good reason, and this was before I'd read Carl Hiassen.  Tampa it is, then.  I shan't be returning any time soon.

[Cudzoziemiec]

My luggage has been to Colombia. I haven't. I was in Orlando. I would have swapped.

I would recommend the other way round, Colombia is a beautiful country!

That's what I was saying. Orlando is pretty uniformly awful unless you like theme parks and screaming children. It's been in the qualifiers as a new province of Hell for some years, pipped in the last round by Fresno.

Because of my unhealthy obsession with ticking every USAnian state off the bingo card I was obliged to visit Florida.  I decided to eschew Orlando because it would be full to the brim with Disney-obsessed halfwits and Miami because, as any fule kno, it's a high-crime sauna where tourists get killed utterly to DETH for no good reason, and this was before I'd read Carl Hiassen.  Tampa it is, then.  I shan't be returning any time soon.

With your interest in motor sports, was there any reason you didn't choose Daytona Beach instead?

[ian]

Miami is mostly unexciting and has minimal history and is full of people who've stumbled off cruise liners and appear to have their brains stuffed into their obligatory 'fanny packs.'

I confess, it used to be nice to visit on the annual company sales jamboree, as a bout of mid-20s temperatures in early January was a reprieve from the mid-winter cold and damp. I did one kayak across the Everglades which was fun, and yes, featured alligators.

[Mr Larrington]

My luggage has been to Colombia. I haven't. I was in Orlando. I would have swapped.

I would recommend the other way round, Colombia is a beautiful country!

That's what I was saying. Orlando is pretty uniformly awful unless you like theme parks and screaming children. It's been in the qualifiers as a new province of Hell for some years, pipped in the last round by Fresno.

Because of my unhealthy obsession with ticking every USAnian state off the bingo card I was obliged to visit Florida.  I decided to eschew Orlando because it would be full to the brim with Disney-obsessed halfwits and Miami because, as any fule kno, it's a high-crime sauna where tourists get killed utterly to DETH for no good reason, and this was before I'd read Carl Hiassen.  Tampa it is, then.  I shan't be returning any time soon.

With your interest in motor sports, was there any reason you didn't choose Daytona Beach instead?

Tampa, Orlando & Miami are the only places in Florida with direct flights from the UK.  Plus the whole thing is an adjunct to the annual pilgrimage to Battle Mountain NV so time spent faffing around at race tracks is time wasted

[Cudzoziemiec]

Except when it's the whole point of the visit, obviously!

[Salvatore]

As Orlando has been mentioned, I'll mention that I have a nephew who lives in a gated community south-east of Orlando, which describes itself as "one of the premier country club communities in Central Florida". This morning we've been sent a video clip of them watching the yesterday's rocket launch at Cape Canaveral on TV, then going outside to watch the rocket  emerging from behind the houses across the road and passing in and out of the clouds as it rose higher.

[Panoramix]

As most people who have Colombian family, I have family in Miami... They seem obsessed with hiring the biggest 4wd truck they can find when they come to Colombia, my knowledge of "Chevrolets" (Say Che vro lay te) being abysmal, conversations tend to be a bit too short. I imagine they see me as some sort of weird snobbish leftish tofu eating European.

I probably should stop there once!

[SoreTween]

20+ years ago I transited through Miami on my way to Columbia (or was it a Trinidad trip?). To this day I thought I'd somehow taken the wrong door having found myself land side and queuing to go back through to air side.  I really felt I'd been lucky to get away with such stupidity when the tsa inquisitor let me back through without comment. One less divvery incident on my life tally it turns out 

[ian]

MIA always purgatorial even as US airports go – for a major tourist destination, well, you'd think they'd have upped their game. I once queued four hours at immigration. You get bonus points for the finding the secret Cuba flight though (don't know if it's changed, but they couldn't announce or otherwise acknowledge (via the screens) the existence of this flight in any other format than someone by the gate holding a piece of cardboard with the destination written with a market pen in small letters (there's probably a law that specifies the largest letter size)).

[Cudzoziemiec]

You get bonus points for the finding the secret Cuba flight though (don't know if it's changed, but they couldn't announce or otherwise acknowledge (via the screens) the existence of this flight in any other format than someone by the gate holding a piece of cardboard with the destination written with a market pen in small letters (there's probably a law that specifies the largest letter size)).

Did it say "Dirty commie bastard traitors this way"?

[Mr Larrington]

Professor Larrington had a five-hour queueueueueueue at O'Hare in 2009, so she was somewhat miffed when I waltzed through the same airport in about 25 minutes later that same year

[SoreTween]

4 hours is my highest. I'd been travelling a lot for work so I'd built up a really solid tolerance.  I always packed two books (dead tree) in my hand baggage, not good ones but mindless and entertaining to absorb. Kind of, I think, like watching disaster movies.  Soon as I arrived at my point of departure I'd open the first and immerse myself.  The travel experience became a machine in which I was not a cog, merely a passing product like a jaffa cake on it's way to the jam station.  I was totally zen with my place in the machine.  I knew exactly which pocket my passport was in, and my LOI, and everything else.  I travel in scanner friendly shoes with no belt nor watch nor rings (even after marriage) and  totally empty pockets.  Now I travel less it's still stands me in good stead.  Like the zen driving dude I merely smile at the prawns getting huffy with the bag inspectors because theirs has been side-tracked.  If I miss my connections at shithole schipol, meh, I'll have a beer a get the next available seat.
Anyway, after that ramble on the 4 hour occasion it was a particularly absorbing book (I have no idea what is was).  The main thing I remember is getting to the front of the queue and thinking bum, I was enjoying that, before noticing the elapsed time    No idea where it was but I can still picture the arrival hall.  I went there a few times and it had very few flights per day yet 3 were scheduled to arrive at short intervals.  On this occasion mine was the last of the 3 to land, headwinds or somesuch.
4 hours on my feet these days would require 4 days in traction for my back to recover.

[mrcharly-YHT]

My aim for any flights is not to have hold luggage.

Managed 2weeks in Canada (with clothes suitable for winter snowshoeing and skiing) followed by a week working in texas. One small laptop bag, one daypack (sized to meeting airline regs).

I had a pair of boots that I wear all the time plus walking boots. The walking boots went on my feet for flights, the other boots in bag.

[ian]

I mostly can't be bothered lugging a bag around the airport, so I throw myself on the tender mercies of the baggage mishandlers. I usually carry emergency stuff in my cabin bag, or course on my last trip to Philadelphia some last-minute packing mishap meant I forgot, so yeah, you guessed it, my bag went AWOL for two days. Luckily it did the mystery arrival the evening before I left Philadelphia for New York, however, I'd already bought spare clothes, chargers etc. They didn't quibble my claim (well, they said claim on your travel insurance and I said, no I don't think so). That was a direct flight, so I have no idea their excuse.

My strangest airport experience was in Ghana when on my way back home, as I was about to change my local currency I was led off by a group of gun-toting soldiers. I thought I'd committed some horrid crime but actually it turned they were rounding up foreigners to watch Nigeria's Got Talent. Apparently, one of their comrades was in it. We all agreed that he was very, very good and should have won.

[Panoramix]

We all agreed that he was very, very good and should have won.