Is 2 hours enough time to connect through SFO with customs?

Question

I'm flying from Taipei (TPE) - San Francisco (SFO) - Toronto (YYZ).

I have a two-hour layover in San Francisco. This trip was booked as one ticket with one airline. However, the second leg of the trip looks like it will be a codeshare with a partner airline.

From some research, it seems like I will have to pick up my luggage in San Francisco, go through US customs, and drop the luggage off again. If this is the case, will I have enough time on the layover or is it likely that I'll miss the second flight? If it's not enough time, what's my best course of action?

Answer 1

Like other US airports, SFO doesn't have a sterile transit area but it does have a kind of organised international-to-international transit procedure. There are many flights from Europe to Polynesia using this route. In this case, there is staff to guide you and passengers doing that get a kind of bright orange plastic transfer “tag” (for lack of a better name, it looks like a giant solid plastic bookmark).

I don't know if your flight will follow the same procedure but since you are not trying to “self-transfer” and got a single ticket covering both legs, the airline thinks its reasonable. I assume that you are also unlikely to be the only passenger doing this and that the airline will assist you if the wait at immigration is abnormally long.

In practice, you will have to proceed to the US immigration check where the wait can indeed be significant and, in your situation, stressful. After that your bags should already be there (if you need to collect them) and you can immediately proceed to the security inspection and the gate. The wait at this security checkpoint always seems quite short and you don't need to budget a ton of time for the other steps. Follow the “transfer” signs and do not exit to the regular departure area or go through the regular check-in procedure there. The international terminal also doesn't feel that large (compared to large hubs in Asia or Europe I know, even if Wikipedia tells me it's the largest international terminal in North America).

PS: This is based on my observations during multiple recent trips to SFO but I have actually never used the exact route you mention.

Answer 2

From some research, it seems like I will have to pick up my luggage in San Francisco, go through US customs, and drop the luggage off again.

Correct

If this is the case, will I have enough time on the layover or is it likely that I'll miss the second flight?

If things are "normal", you'll be fine. But there are many different variables (delays, late or lost bags, immigration, customs, getting lost between terminals, security, etc) so no one can say with a 100% certainty. I'd say it's 90%+

If it's not enough time, what's my best course of action?

The airline will rebook you to the next available flight. If would be good to research up front what that might be. If this is a Star Alliance ticket, they can rebook you on both United and Air Canada and there are plenty of daily flights. However if you are coming in late in the day, you may have to stay the night: in this case you are typically entitled to a hotel and food but that depends a bit on your negotiation skills, so it's good to prepare a bit.

Answer 3

You will have to go through security again and the wait times for passport control and security can vary a lot.

You can view average wait times for two of the variables that will affect your total connection time.

1. For passport control: Average wait time reported by US CPB. It varies quite a bit by time of day and citizenship status. For an overall average you could look here, where ~20 minutes is reported as the average, and SFO ranked the 4th slowest.
2. You will go through a TSA checkpoint again. Your average TSA wait time can be estimated here or here. At the moment the former shows ~10-15 minutes and latter shows ~12 minutes

Your connection time will include:

1. Waiting to deplane
2. Immigration (passport control)
3. Getting your bag and walk through customs
4. Drop your bags again
5. Going through security
6. Travel time between all of these things

Let's put some hypothetical numbers in place. Edited based on comments

1. Waiting to deplane once you arrive at the gate - 15 minutes
2. Immigration - 20 minutes (average reported above)
3. Getting your bags - (just travel time to collect if you are lucky), no extra time for customs if you have nothing to declare and are not selected for a random search
4. Dropping bags again (just travel time if an agent is available and you don’t have to go back to ticketing)
5. Going through security - 10 minutes (lower part of average reported above)
6. Travel time between all of these things - 20 minutes

No major slowdowns, and relatively quick pace for bags, customs, and security. That would be 1 hour 5 minutes, leaving plenty of time before your departure.

If any one of these steps is delayed (passport control being being a big variable), your chances of making the connection become worse.