Seattle Airport

Seatac has a terrible international arrival terminal. We arrived from Paris on our Air France flight. The customs lines were fairly long and it took a while to get our luggage. No real explanation just hundreds of Americans Europeans and other nationalities in the luggage area. The only non-english announcement I heard was in German. After having spent two weeks in Eurpoe we were very spoiled that many Europeans spoke a little english. We missed 2 flights because airport employees were telling us and many others we could go out and come back in when they had no business giving half correct instructions.

First time arriving on an international flight at SEA I found the process quite efficient and nice compared to other major US airports. The immigration line was short and fast and the luggage came out quite quickly. The only issue was that we had to clear customs at the satellite terminal and then re-deposited our luggage to be picked up again at the main terminal. Departing was also a straightforward process though the check in and security lines were significantly longer. But it seemed that the airport staff was ready for it and the lines moved swiftly.

Admittedly this is the first time that I have transited Seatac but I found the process very onerous. Arriving on a Lufthansa flight from Europe and connecting with an AC flight to Vancouver - a process that took 3 hours! Immigration Control was slow and as Canadian citizens we were not advised that we could use the Areas 5 and 6 reserved for US citizens until we were well into the lineup. Once dealt with by a very pleasant officer we had to go thru TSA inspection which took a while by more pleasant officers (did u know that there were regulation sized plastic bags for your liquids??? I sure didn't!) and then had to take 3 count 'em three trains to get to the North Satellite where our Jazz aircraft departed from! And we only made it because of a helpful United Airlines employee - certainly not because of any useful signage! We probably wouldn't choose to travel via SEA again if we could help it it was far too stressful.