LAX is renowned for being a horrible place. I have perpetuated this notion and experienced it first hand on several occasions as it just being a horrible place to end up. I tried my best to avoid it in the past but the reality of the situation is that if you are approaching the western world from Asia by going over the Pacific Ocean, chances are you are going to end up in LAX at some point.
I was dreading being there and I am not going to lie and say that the experience was wonderful (because it wasn't) I will say that they have improved things a tremendous amount since the last time I was there.
I tend to be a very negative person so instead I will focus on the things that have improved. I don't know if the TSA and immigration officials at LAX were getting into trouble because of their horrible attitude that I have experienced in the past, but I certainly hope they have been getting revamped and maybe the World Cup was the reason for this.
on my trip this time I experienced nothing but wonderful attitude and dare i say actual kindness from the government officials that I had to deal with on my journey into USA which is required even though I was not stopping there.
I don't like the fact that i was able to be digitally stamped in by someone just pointing a camera at me but it worked. And the Homeland Security guy simply said "welcome back" with a smile on his face and that was the end of that.
In the past when I had arrived there in LAX as well as in NYC, I was grilled by an angry and probably power-hungry official who had a ton of questions about why I had been gone for so long as if it was incredibly unusual for an American to live outside of the USA. I was treated with suspicion and disdain even though I had done nothing wrong other than choose to live outside of the country on my passport.
Well this time it was the polar opposite. Everyone was kind, everything was efficient.
I will admit that a lot of this may have had to do with the fact that my flight was one of the last ones arriving for the night but let's give them the benefit of the doubt.
A lot of the reason why there is no one around me in these pictures is because I am not one of the people that frantically tries to get off an airplane as fast as they can. I've never understood this spastic reaction to a plane landing. I also visit the first bathroom that I can as soon as we de-plane so that all the frantic "idiots" can go ahead and fight their way to the front, completely in vain.
I let everyone get ages ahead of me on purpose You can't take pictures in the actual immigration area here or anywhere else in the world so I wasn't going to chance ruining this moment, but everyone in the process was smiling and was either genuinely kind, or very good at faking it.
Now once we get past the government folks things were not much improved but definitely better than last time.
For reasons I will never understand you are not allowed to pass your bags through to your final destination at LAX, they have to be picked up and rechecked. In the past this meant that you had to lug them around until your ticketing counter opened up for your specific flight but thankfully they have now made a counter right outside of immigration that leads to a very clearly marked baggage carousel area.
This baggage pickup is still from the 70's or something like that, but the building it is in has been renovated. No longer do the bathrooms look like bus stations from 50 years ago. They were modern and everything was spacious and clean. The bags arrived just like they said they would and then as soon as you leave this area you end up interacting with the one aspect of LAX that I don't think has improved and most of this has to do with the attitude of indifference on the part of the staff.
At least you can re-check your bag right away instead of lugging it around all night for your connection and this might be why the people that were working there were so I would say, downright cruel on purpose. Look, I get it, you work here all the time and you can't understand why people don't know exactly where to go, but I DO NOT WORK here. I only come here as infrequently as possible and I don't know where to go, I don't know the process with my bag, and if you don't want people to ask the I dunno, maybe put up a fucking sign.
The lady at the desk acted annoyed that I was asking where to put my bag and then essentially just rolled her eyes and patronizingly told me to "give my bag to that guy" like it was the most obvious thing in the world.
You mean that guy that I walked straight past that said nothing to me because he was dealing with his phone and was also in a conversation with another staff member at the same time? The guy that could have easily told me that the bag drop off was right there?
Then, after the guy used some scanner to re-check my one bag, he kind of aggressively rolled it across the floor to an area where a hundred other bags were haphazardly stored and barely looked at me and said "you're good" and then went back to his conversation.
I don't think I am being unreasonable when I say that this entire situation kind of concerns me. It doesn't seem secure at all and if the entire process isn't secure, and isn't intended to be for security, then why the fuck make us do it in the first place?
Whatever, they were rude but at least they were fast.
I suppose this is the difference between TSA and actual federal employees.
Ok, that rant got a bit out of control
LAX is a very poorly designed airport with most of the terminals not being connected to one another but they are at least looking to change this.
[src](https://scpr.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/4297d46/2147483647/strip/true/crop/1202x676+0+0/resize/1200x675!/quality/90/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fscpr-brightspot.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com%2F8f%2F21%2F09ac8aea4488befbea0616a9c003%2Flax-terminal-renaming.png)Almost everyone arrives internationally at the Tom Bradley terminal and really guys, it's time to just give that terminal a normal numbered name. I encountered so many people that were really confused about how all other terminals have numbers except for this one, which is oddly named after someone that is I guess important. It is not Tom Brady from the New England Patriots, unfortunately.
But again I will give credit where it is due, there was AMPLE signage indicating every which direction that a person needed to go and they have even installed kiosks that can help people in multiple languages!
Well done USA! You have managed to install technology that the rest of the 1st world has had for a decade or so. Hell, we have it is Vietnam and that government doesn't even have any money!
Credit where credit is due though LAX. These upgrades were badly needed and you have gotten around to them. Better late than never as they say.
The biggest improvement to this airport is not structural at all though, the change in attitude of everyone that works there (aside from the assholes in the baggage re-check area) has just been a "night and day" sort of change.
I hope they can manage to keep this up because it does make a huge different as far as the overall travel experience is concerned.
To the people who remain jerks just because they can be though I wonder, is your day better or worse because of this? I think everyone could win a lot more if you just were nice to people and thankfully, most of the LAX airport has done exactly that.
