poppets

i havbe done the NZ to london , LA transit flight (& on the return leg) & had no probs either time. with the return leg i was nearly at the back of the line so but still had time to eat, drink, wee, & read in the transit lounge. TBH it wasn't as bad as i thouight it would be, & there are propper loos they are to the right after you go through the passport checks.

my folks are flying the london, shanghai (virgin) the Air NZ to auckland in january but have read that this dhould be ok too

Yotty

I work for BA and my wife works for Virgin... we would avoid LAX if at all possible..

RobClubley

This is Singapore Airport terminal 2:

lapsed kiwi

A funny story I heard from a friend on that flight. Some guy in front of him had some sort of "problem" with his passport, and was told that he was going to be refused entry to the US. "No problem", he replied "just put me back on that plane and I'm out of here". This totally threw the US officials.

The other less funny thing I experienced - having been fast-tracked into the lounge with our two small kids - was watching people queue for 2 hours, then because it was nearly time to board the aircraft, those remaining in the queue were just let into the lounge with no checks - ie they queued for nothing. How logical is that?

RobClubley

At least they got their flights - some friends of our passed through LA (admittedly not long after 9/11) on their way to Hawaii for their honeymoon.

Both are British born with Indian parents, so they fit the profile for questioning!

Their stopover was two hours and they were questioned for four!

They git to Hawaii eventually but were not too impressed.

howden40

Yes we had a problem last year.

Again we were split up as a family group, we also had a 15 year old British/Indian with us. My husband went into one interview room to be told he had the same name as a Canadian who had been refused admission and had to prove he wasn't this Canadian.

My eldest son was taken into an interview room because he met the profile for the terrorists who had driven into Glasgow airport (we were in flight at the time of the incident).

Poor Gaurav was not initially interviewed but while we were waiting for my husband and son in the designated waiting area every security guard who entered the area took him aside to interview him, I was not permitted to stay with him - and we were their for a long time.

We had no rights at all, no rights for under aged children to be accompanied by an adult - disgusting and surly a breach of human rights.

We found the customs staff to be intimidating, rude and most unhelpful. Would never do this again.

Pauline

Yarpy

Now ask yourself the question:

How did they come by the information to construct the profile?

MOSO

Last time we flew out to San Francisco on Virgin and then onto Auckland on Air New Zealand. San Francisco is great, clean, spacious and you can go where you like. If you've got kids there's a FREE monorail which goes out a couple of miles past a freeway to the car hire terminal - very exciting if you're a kid and kills loads of time.

We flew back via LA which wasn't as good but okay. We got moved queues with having young kids but it wasn't any faster. There were toilets and snacks and we had no problems.

eddie_nz

I fly UK to NZ a lot

and since 911 I've only ever flown throught the US once it was hell

I only fly via singapore / HK / KL

Flying through america is a nightmare

Yarpy

The question on my mind is what rights did you have during the period when your children were detained?

A neighbour had this experience recently. Her husband was 'detained' for two hours. Curiously no questions were asked and he was released without explanation.

chippy64

They wouldn't answer our questions and refused us access to our boys. It was very scary for us and our sons. Not an experience I would like to repeat!

Margaret Parkinson

My son took my grandson (my daughters son) on a Disney cruise when he was 10 years old. He had to have written permission to take him out of the country. My son had been to to US a few times and they stick a green card in your passport which is removed when you leave. It was appearing in their system that he had never left and they took him away for questioning leaving my grandson alone for about an hour which was very scary for him to say the least. It turned out somewhere along the way his departure had not been registered so we can only presume they had lost the card. No apology of course.

June

newzealandplease

Flew via LAX earlier this year. Family forum so can't write my exact thoughts!!

Needless to say I will never willingly pass through or stay in the US period. The arrogance and stupidity of the whole thing was beyond me.

Family are flying via Hong Kong, wouldn't have it any other way