CCS'24: almost getting stuck at JFK---again

This trip was almost a deja-vu of two of my previous “adventures”: the CODASPY’23 one, and the ACSAC’22 one.

First, CCS’24 was held in Salt Lake City, Utah, USA. There are no direct flights from Zurich—and there were no solutions that enabled me to do a stop in an European airport (unless I was willing to spend one night either in Zurich, or to another city). The best option I found (at least to reach SLC) entailed one stop: a flight from ZRH to JFK (in New York), and then another one from JFK to SLC (after a stopover of 2h at JFK); the entire trip was proposed and operated by Delta Airlines.

Everything went smoothly at the beginning: I reached ZRH on time, and began waiting in front of the gate. Then, we got onto the plane and… we waited. For some reason, the plane accumulated a delay of around 30minutes in the ZRH airport, because it was not able to take off. Such a delay persisted until our landing at JFK, which occurred with 30m past the original ETA. This meant that I only had 90 minutes to reach my connecting flight. Having been at JFK before (actually, I spent an entire night in it for my CODASPY’23 trip…) and having also been in a similar situation before (i.e., not a lot of time for my connecting flight, for ACSAC’22), I knew I had to be ruthless here.

As soon as the “belt-light” went off and the door of the plane opened, I stood up.[a]Actually, I even checked with my phone how long was the estimate queue time at the border control: there were estimates for all terminals at JFK (going from 5m to 30m), aside from Terminal 4… which was, of course, the one I was in. and began asking all passengers in the plane if I could move ahead because “I had a flight soon” (which was true). Thankfully, nobody opposed and in just a couple of minutes I was out of the plane. Great. Then I began running.

It took me ~15m of running (some treadmills were broken…) before I reached the border control. This meant only 75m before the departure of my connecting flight. The estimated wait time stated in the border control area at JFK was 35m… which was too much for me. I then began to do what I did before again: asking every person in line if I could move ahead because “I have a flight soon”. This, however, was not very practical: asking this to the 100s of people ahead was just too much. So I asked an operator nearby if there was anything I could do since I had a flight soon: she told me that, for these cases, there was a dedicated “quick connect” queue. How convenient! I went there, and in ~15m I was past the controls. I had 50m left before my connecting flight, and I thought that the worst was gone. I was, however, wrong.

As soon as I exited the arrival area, I found myself in a familiar place: it was the entrance of the terminal. Meaning that… I had to go through security controls again. This was bad. I then began to run again, and asked all people in line if I could move ahead due to having a flight soon. Some people were reluctant to let me past through—some stated “We have a flight soon, too”, to which I replied “then why aren’t you in a hurry like me?” and then they made me go through. I reached the area with the x-ray machine when 35m were left before my flight took off. I, again, thought I did it… but I was, again, wrong. The x-ray machine to which I was queued decided to break. So, after 2m of waiting, realising it was not going to be fixed soon, I switched line (again, pleading the people there to make me go ahead) and I passed the checks when 30m were left.

I didn’t even tied my shoelaces: I began running. I quickly checked the gate from which my flight was going to depart: of course, it was the one farthest away from where I was located. The signs stated that 15m were needed to reach that gate. I knew I had less than that.

I reached the gate in ~5minutes. I even had time to go to the restroom and purchase a beverage at a vending machine (a whopping 7$ for a 25cl energy drink). When I entered the plane, I almost did not believe it. Or rather, I was wondering how anyone could have managed to catch that flight if they landed at JFK with my flight: in a normal circumstances, it would take ~20m (walking) to reach the border control, at least ~30m of queue for the immigration, at least ~30 more minutes for the security check, and at least ~15m of walking to the gate—assuming no “bad luck” (e.g., flight delays, or broken x-ray machines). Of course, had I been an US citizen, I wouldn’t have had to go through the border control; and had I had paid for additional services (e.g., TSA precheck, which is crazy expensive) I may have saved some time. But still, I think that flight operators should be more transparent to customers when they attempt to purchase such “flight packages”: a “normal person” flying in economy cannot expect to reliably take a connecting flight at JFK with less than 3h of stopover (lesson learned: if possible, avoid JFK as intermediate stop).