I traveled to Toronto this week for the wedding of my nephew Levi Vigler to Tzipi Nachlas. It was a beautiful celebration, filled with so much energy, joy, and dancing.
I took my 13 year-old son Zalman with me, and we flew in literally just for the day.
We left the wedding at the end of the night, got to bed around midnight, and woke up at 4:30 a.m. to catch our 7:00 a.m. flight back to NYC. I figured the odds of the airport being full at the crack of dawn—even for an international flight—were low, so we didn’t leave to the airport until 5:30 a.m.
Before we were even at the airport, my brother-in-law who was also flying home and was already in line, texted me that there were extremely long lines at passport control.
Oy vey! I was not happy. I hate long lines.
Well, when we got to the airport I headed to the TSA pre-check line, but when we got to the front of the line the security officer sent us back to the main line since my son does not have TSA precheck like I do.
The same thing happened at passport control. The line was hundreds deep. My brother-in-law had been in line for 40 minutes already and had not made much progress. I headed to Global Entry where there were no lines, but again, I was turned away because my son doesn’t have Global Entry, only I do. I felt sure I’d used global entry before with my kids, but perhaps it was when they were much younger.
Not only did she send me all the way to the back of the impossibly long line, she wrote a stern warning in my profile that if I ever dare to try doing this again, I’ll be banned from Global Entry for 10 years!
I knew there was no way I’d make it to my flight at this point, so I started considering my options. What a waste of a day! And we could have slept more than 4.5 hours!
My brother-in-law then called me and told me not to get into the line. “Download the MPC app,” he advised.
“I’ve never heard of this, what is MPC?” I asked.
“Mobile Passport Control app,” he explained. “Download it and follow the instructions and you can skip the line.”
What did I have to lose? I downloaded the app and followed the prompts, and within three minutes I was bypassing all the lines!
My brother-in-law ended up waiting in line for an hour. Fortunately, he had gotten there earlier than we had and he made the flight on time. I surely would not have.
And then I started wondering, how come nobody uses MPC? Why are hundreds of people waiting in line for a passport stamp while the MPC line is literally empty?
There are even signs all over the airport telling people to download the app, and yet nobody—myself included—knows about it! It’s just as efficient as Global Entry, only it’s an app.
I took away two lessons from this experience:
- We all have problems, and sometimes the solution is right in front of us—literally staring us in the face—and we still don’t see it. We need to actually open our eyes and look!
- There’s a certain ease and security that comes with following the crowd. But just because everyone is following the same path, doesn’t mean it’s the correct or best one. Sometimes the solution is one that most people don’t even know about.
Well, I guess now you all know about it, too, so go ahead, download the app and skip the line next time you travel. You’ll be glad you did.