US Preclearance from Canadian airports; is it worth it??????
Apr 6, 2014, 8:18 pm
#16
Join Date: Jan 2000
Location: Calgary,AB
Programs: Aeroplan 25K , UA ,WJ, HA, AMEX AP Reserve
Posts: 1,289
Apr 7, 2014, 6:32 am
#17
Join Date: Feb 2001
Location: somewhere north of stateside...
Posts: 4,153
The US also wants the US here.
Preclearance provides a large number of benefits to the United States, including: security benefits, as all passengers travelling through pre clearance airports are processed by US officials prior to flight departure; infrastructure savings benefits, as many US airports do not currently have the capacity to process passengers from Canada in their existing terminals/CBP facilities, which would require significant upgrades at significant cost; and efficiency savings for airlines, which would be forced to deplane passengers from Canada at US terminals with CBP, and then likely tow their aircraft to their departure gates in different terminals for ongoing flights.
In addition, if preclearance was scrapped, flights from Canada to various US airports would not be possible, given that they do not have any passenger clearance facilities (DCA and LGA are the two largest of these, but also a number of small destinations such as SYR or ROC). Cutting preclearance would put all of these flights at risk, and thus no doubt have the various congressional delegations from these states up in arms - its unlikely to go anywhere.
In fact, I think that this last point is particularly important. I would imagine that if the United States ever decided to seriously look at cutting the program, Air Canada would restore many of the BEH routes from Toronto to various smaller US centres that it cut over the past year - such as PWN, PVD, DAY, GRR etc etc. to win support from lawmakers for the program.
Preclearance provides a large number of benefits to the United States, including: security benefits, as all passengers travelling through pre clearance airports are processed by US officials prior to flight departure; infrastructure savings benefits, as many US airports do not currently have the capacity to process passengers from Canada in their existing terminals/CBP facilities, which would require significant upgrades at significant cost; and efficiency savings for airlines, which would be forced to deplane passengers from Canada at US terminals with CBP, and then likely tow their aircraft to their departure gates in different terminals for ongoing flights.
In addition, if preclearance was scrapped, flights from Canada to various US airports would not be possible, given that they do not have any passenger clearance facilities (DCA and LGA are the two largest of these, but also a number of small destinations such as SYR or ROC). Cutting preclearance would put all of these flights at risk, and thus no doubt have the various congressional delegations from these states up in arms - its unlikely to go anywhere.
In fact, I think that this last point is particularly important. I would imagine that if the United States ever decided to seriously look at cutting the program, Air Canada would restore many of the BEH routes from Toronto to various smaller US centres that it cut over the past year - such as PWN, PVD, DAY, GRR etc etc. to win support from lawmakers for the program.
Apr 7, 2014, 11:50 am
#18
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Join Date: Aug 2010
Location: DCA
Programs: UA US CO AA DL FL
Posts: 50,262
By way of example, all Canadian traffic to WAS would be to IAD (20 minutes to the curb + time at FIS + 45 minutes on a good day to downtown) rather than DCA (10 mins. to downtown).
And, even if there is an international terminal, it is far from clear that there are gates available especially for the smaller aircraft which service many transborder routes.