Long story.......
We came back from vacation yesterday, went through the re-entry process at San Juan. Had a new experience.
We're in the Priority line at American Airlines ticketing. The family in front of us is taking absolutely forever. Some kind of problem. At one point, the mother stayed there and the rest of the family departed, then came back 15 minutes later and there was more hassle. Only one ticket agent on duty. It became clear that the people hadn't done something they were required to do. Eventually they got ticketed -- they were holding up the line more than 30 minutes -- and we stepped up. Went to check the bags and were told they didn't have a USDA sticker.
WTF?
The agent said all bags had to have a sticker showing they had been inspected by the USDA. I've traveled internationally a fair amount, and never ran into this before, at San Juan or any other port of entry. The agent did the paperwork for checking the bags, but said he couldn't accept them without a sticker. We had to go to the USDA check station and get a sticker. Where is that? He pointed to a corner of the ticketing area. We went over there and found a scanner with conveyor belt and a sign that said "APHIS" and were told to put our bags on the conveyor. Not just the ones we were going to check, but also my carryon, our computer case and even Mrs. LC's purse. Everything went through the scanner at relatively high speed. Nobody seemed to be looking at any screen. They put a sticker on every piece. We then took the bags back to the ticket counter and they were accepted.
Amazing. We had been asked, as always, if we were carrying any meat, plants, etc., when we came through Customs. The USDA check was a farce, wouldn't have discovered it if we had been carrying a cage full of covid-infected Chinese bats. The check station was nowhere near immigration or customs.
Fortunately, we had almost 3 hours to make our connection, but it was still a royal pain in the ass for no purpose that I can imagine. And as I said, I've never run into it anywhere else. Also, American Airlines presumably would have assigned more than one agent, because while we were there, everybody had the same problem.
I later went online and discovered that APHIS is an acronym for the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, a part of USDA, but I found no explanation for what seems to be a new (and redundant) policy.
We came back from vacation yesterday, went through the re-entry process at San Juan. Had a new experience.
We're in the Priority line at American Airlines ticketing. The family in front of us is taking absolutely forever. Some kind of problem. At one point, the mother stayed there and the rest of the family departed, then came back 15 minutes later and there was more hassle. Only one ticket agent on duty. It became clear that the people hadn't done something they were required to do. Eventually they got ticketed -- they were holding up the line more than 30 minutes -- and we stepped up. Went to check the bags and were told they didn't have a USDA sticker.
WTF?
The agent said all bags had to have a sticker showing they had been inspected by the USDA. I've traveled internationally a fair amount, and never ran into this before, at San Juan or any other port of entry. The agent did the paperwork for checking the bags, but said he couldn't accept them without a sticker. We had to go to the USDA check station and get a sticker. Where is that? He pointed to a corner of the ticketing area. We went over there and found a scanner with conveyor belt and a sign that said "APHIS" and were told to put our bags on the conveyor. Not just the ones we were going to check, but also my carryon, our computer case and even Mrs. LC's purse. Everything went through the scanner at relatively high speed. Nobody seemed to be looking at any screen. They put a sticker on every piece. We then took the bags back to the ticket counter and they were accepted.
Amazing. We had been asked, as always, if we were carrying any meat, plants, etc., when we came through Customs. The USDA check was a farce, wouldn't have discovered it if we had been carrying a cage full of covid-infected Chinese bats. The check station was nowhere near immigration or customs.
Fortunately, we had almost 3 hours to make our connection, but it was still a royal pain in the ass for no purpose that I can imagine. And as I said, I've never run into it anywhere else. Also, American Airlines presumably would have assigned more than one agent, because while we were there, everybody had the same problem.
I later went online and discovered that APHIS is an acronym for the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, a part of USDA, but I found no explanation for what seems to be a new (and redundant) policy.
