Mike Hancho

I have the really good AUA overnight and am going to bring my wife. Has anyone done this here or some such place? Curious if she can expedite through customs with me on either end. She is not an air line person. I'm thinking I will also need our own ground transportation if she is not able to expedite as we couldn't expect others to accommodate the extra time we would need.

dalad

[QUOTE=Mike Hancho;1488759]I have the really good AUA overnight and am going to bring my wife. Has anyone done this here or some such place? Curious if she can expedite through customs with me on either end. She is not an air line person. I'm thinking I will also need our own ground transportation if she is not able to expedite as we couldn't expect others to accommodate the extra time we would need.[/QUOTE
My wife went with me and tagged along going in and out. You pre clear customs on the way out.

gloopy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zIom3LSbB0I

Mike Hancho

My wife went with me and tagged along going in and out. You pre clear customs on the way out.[/QUOTE]

Well cool. Thank you Dalad.

newKnow

It seems as though they can never make it easy. But, after the baseball season from hell, I'll take 'em.

qball

Probably one of the best written and well acted series out there. Wasn't sure at first if I could wrap my head around the subject matter...I was hooked 15 minutes in to the pilot episode.

Bucking Bar

Microsoft just released the specs on the new Surface.

Looks like really, really, good stuff.

We are going to be buying ... terrific upgrade for the wife's business.

Microsoft's New Surface Tablets: The Upgrade Is on the Inside

georgetg

New Starbucks in DTW across from A19 opened today

Cheers
George

Roadkill

Mike,
Despite what dalad said, at AUA there are sometimes long lines for non-crew members.
--Entry into AUA isn't too bad unless you land when there are several flights, there is a separate line for Airline Crew, you go through that and show passport to AUA folks and that's it. The other lines move pretty fast too, and there are 5 or 6 of them all feeding from one queue. It really depends here if you're OK with your wife walking past all the paying pax you just flew in, looking at you walk past them in your Delta uniform and helping your wife take cutsies in front of them...
Personally, I think that's really a pretty tacky thing to do, and every person standing in line you sneak your wife past into the "Airline Crew" line will surely be staring at you thinking so too. But you could probably do it and AUA customs would likely let you. Maybe.

--Exit from AUA is much harder-- you go through 4 long lines. There are always people racked up waiting. You have to force your way past them up their roped off aisles "excuse me... scuse me... coming thru, pilot here..." to even get within sight of the check stations, where they see you're an aircrew in uniform and pull you forward. Having done this several times recently, it's my opinion that you would NOT be able to skip all the people in these lines, four times, and get her through the agents/passport checks/baggage scanners etc. with you. People are waiting in line for 2 hours, and they might be OK with a pilot walking past, but you walking past with a civilian firetruck-chasing you, then you standing up there trying to explain to a customs or scanner agent while they all listen, "Hey, I know all these other folks waited in line 2 hours, and I know this sign says "Airline Crews" and all, but can my civilian wife here sneak along with me?"

.... Dude.... it's trying to get away with stuff like this that gets ALLL the pilot privileges for cutsies and special treatment taken away. The answer for anyone not totally out for themselves and damn the rest is "no, follow the customs and immigrations rules for civilians because your wife is not an airline crew duh."
Sorry to be blunt but I'm tired of hearing "we lost that because some United Pilot tried to sneak his wife in and got in a ****ing match with TSA..." Plan on a 15 min delay for your wife entering AUA and a 2 hour delay exiting, with 1 hour reality likely. Hotel trans from airport to the hotel would work fine entering as it will be a shortish wait and driver won't care. Just take the hotel van early from the hotel to airport with wife and stand in line with here... when the scanner agent's see you they will come grab you "airline crew, come with me to front"--you say "this is my wife, I can just stay with her" and then an AGENT might grab you both--they seem pretty good about that. If you're being escorting through by an agent, and they do come back and grab you when they see you in line, then I don't think you'll have any problems or cause a scene. And the customs lines are usually not very full, and separated enough you could probably just ask the guy when you're done if wife can go through--if "no" then she just steps over one land behind a few folks. Good luck, it's fun and would be worth it.

tsquare

Funny. All I want to know is what leverage you think we have. China is the future. NRT is the past... and some of the present.

I'm still ****ed that I can't fly to KBP/OTP/BUD/MAN/BOG/GRU, and many others either.... but guess what.. people that are making the decisions that those places are unprofitable (on my aircraft anyway) are way more switched on to that than am I. They are also a hell of a lot smarter than you or Carl when it comes to NRT. I hope we do keep flying there, because it is all about jobs... but if you think for a second that MR Anderson is going to go there because of some twisted sense of loyalty to ancient agreements that NWA had, you are smoking crack. It is a business decision pure and simple. And again I will ask, what leverage do you think we have to force Mr Anderson to continue flying there if it doesn't make money?