‘Please DELETE the APP’ quote by the Custom’s and Border Protection Officer at DFW.

We arrived at DFW yesterday ahead of the scheduled arrival time and completed all the requirements of the MPC App to facilitate a quicker process to enter the United States. As soon as the AA051 had landed and the seat belt signs had been switched off my daughter took the selfies which was the final part of the process.

We entered the arrival hall and asked one of the members of staff that we have MPC and still were directed to the foreign arrivals line. We were the first in the line and were interviewed immediately and our pictures were taken again and our passports were handed back. He said that we should delete the App now because it makes our computer system slow right down and we hate it. 

The thing that puzzled us was that after watching a video on the flight from American Airlines it showed us that there would be a MPC lane to follow. It is unclear if all airports and ports are experiencing the same situation but from our point of view we had to wait three times longer to get our priority (supposedly) luggage than it took to enter the States.  

We had plenty of time to follow the flight connection directions and go through DFW internal security. You still have to remove your shoes here although it appears if you are over 75 years of age you don’t. The 100ml liquid rule still applies but you can put empty bottles through and fill them up at the fill stations located outside of the restrooms throughout the terminal.

I had done the background about how and where to get the DFW Skylink train from terminal D to terminal A only to discover on the incredibly long and steep escalator going up to the Sky Link station that we were connecting from terminal D after all. We decided to get on the Skylink to the next part of terminal D just for the fun of it. 

I must say the cabin crew on the AA051 were really hands off and after breakfast almost as soon as we had reached cruising altitude we didn’t see them until about half way when a little ice-cream was served to us. With an hour to go a quinoa salad with a side of sliced melon was served to us. I don’t even remember the Captain welcoming us on board. The 35 minute flight into Austin was completely the opposite and the Captain had a lot to say about the weather and the wind direction and that we had to fly past Austin-Bergstrom airport to land from the other direction.

The walk from the plane to the baggage claim area was a sprint for about 10 minutes and we still managed to beat the conveyor belt at carousel three before our bags arrived.

All in all we were ahead of schedule for both flights and picking up the rental car at the Fox Rent A Car counter was pretty efficient. The team member said that you have reserved a smaller car which put me into a panic because I had reserved an economy car and I thought he was saying that we were going to be getting a smaller car. We were very happy with a Toyota Sentra and our three large cases fitted easily into the boot.

The traffic around Austin is heavy and the road system isn’t easy to navigate because often you think you are in the wrong lane or the signage doesn’t agree with the route that the GPS is instructing. All in all we arrived in Cedar Park near Round Road at 17:45.

Good to see that a gallon of unleaded is around $2.45 – $2.99 and the exchange rate is still steady around $1.30 to the pound.