Airline Accidentally Lets Passengers Skip Immigration

Norse Airlines tells customers to come back to JFK the next day
By Bob Cronin,  Newser Staff
Posted Apr 7, 2023 2:50 PM CDT
Passengers Go on Their Way Without Immigration Check
   (Getty/Tony Studio)

A week into its Paris-New York service, Norse Atlantic Airways suffered what it calls a "disembarkation issue"—in which arriving passengers were able to step off their plane, walk through JFK, grab their luggage, and leave without going through customs. The April 5 flight evidently was treated as a domestic arrival, AeroTime reports. The airline said it has contacted the "small number of customers who did not clear US immigration," per Insider. One of the passengers posted on Reddit that he received an email from Norse later that night telling him to return to John F. Kennedy International Airport by 9 the next morning for the check.

The passengers had not been pre-cleared, which would have legally speeded up the process. "This is a reminder that you have to be cleared by immigration when entering the US," the posted email from Team Norse reads—though it wasn't necessarily the passengers who forgot that. The poster said Norse has offered a free flight to the affected passengers, plus expenses for going back to JFK, but that wasn't mentioned in the airline's statement. The low-fare airline said it's investigating. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials declined to comment. (More Immigration and Customs Enforcement stories.)

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