Why it can take hours to get through customs at LAX for some unlucky travellers
International travelers arriving at Los Angeles International Airport should expect some of the longest wait times in the country to make it through customs en route to their destination, according to data from U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
Every day, thousands of foreign visitors arrive at Southern California's biggest travel hub on their way to visit family, conduct business or tour the region. But first, they need to pass through Customs.
In fiscal year 2024, CBP says the agency processed more than 420 million travelers at ports of entry nationwide, up 6.6% from the year before.
Thousands of those people passed through LAX, according to CBP data updated daily with the airport averaging 550 foreign arrivals every hour last summer, making it the busiest international terminal in the country at the time.
With the high volume also came a dubious distinction: LAX arrivals had the second longest customs wait times of any major airport, averaging more than 30 minutes in line from June through August 2024. Only Chicago O'Hare International Airport was worse.
Though the 30-minute wait time for foreign travelers was an average over the past 12 months, during peak travel periods, the wait was significantly longer, data shows.
For noncitizens, during last year's Labor Day weekend, travelers waited an average of 113 minutes and during the biggest backup, at least one unlucky passenger waited 245 minutes, or more than four hours, to make it through customs.
U.S. citizens returning from abroad had much shorter wait times at LAX last summer — just under 19 minutes on average — but compared to other major airports, LAX was still third slowest for customs. Only O'Hare and Orlando International Airport saw longer waits.
On July 19, a TikTok user posted a video of a hellish line leading to customs, captioned "everyone back from their hot euro summer."
Two days later, another TikTok user posted an even longer line. His caption asked how the city could possibly fix the situation in time to host the Olympics in 2028.
The worst time of summer 2024 to arrive at LAX's international terminal was also Labor Day weekend, when wait times for U.S. citizens topped out at 74 minutes on average with a staggering peak wait time of 205 minutes, well over three hours.
And according to the latest data, the pace of arrivals is again picking up as we head into the busy summer travel season.
Customs arrivals were up nearly 4% year-over-year in April at LAX's Tom Bradley International Terminal, per data from Los Angeles World Airports, suggesting that this summer may be even busier than last year.
"Post-COVID, we have seen exponential growth," said Jaime Ruiz, a CBP spokesperson. "There have been more flights, more travelers."
Many arrivals are long-haul flights, he said, and they often overlap, with weather and scheduling issues compounding the crowding at customs. "Wait time is kind of a moving target. It's a day-to-day situation," Ruiz said.
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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
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