JFK's New Passport Kiosks Have Drastically Cut Down On Customs Lines

According to travel advocacy group Global Gateway's Alliance's latest survey, the new automated passport control kiosks at JFK's International Terminal have helped cut average wait times down from 36 minutes to 17 minutes.

The kiosks were installed throughout the airport October 2013 and have actually scraped 10 minutes off the average wait time for all the airport's terminals.

The decrease is especially impressive considering the number of passengers at JFK's international terminal jumped by 300,000 since last year. Just last year, the average maximum wait time for passengers to pass through customs was two hours, according to GGA.

The alliance found that the wait times were cut so drastically that it's suggesting all New York-area international terminals install the kiosks.

The tables below show the average airport customs wait times at the five busiest U.S. airports for international passenger traffic before and after October 2013. Note the significant drops at JFK, where international Terminal 4 received 40 passport kiosks and Terminal 1 received 16.