I want to toss this idea around for amusement, even though I know it is politically/technically/inertially infeasible.

As an offshoot of the "What should UA do" thread, how about some new strategy along this line:

Create an international transit terminal at IAH, where passengers from Europe or wherever could connect to Lat. Am. without needing US visas and the hassle of Immigration/customs.

Benefits:
-- Opens up revenue from connecting passenger markets / additional revenue from Europe to Lat Am. / S. Am.
-- Reduces burden on CBP workload regarding inbound pax who were going to connect again to intl anyway
-- I'm trying to think of others, besides the overall goal of simply updating our silly US airport terminals setup that can never be changed...

Problems / issues:
-- Maybe passenger market for this service is not so large to merit the trouble
-- Can the current terminal physical structures support this model?
-- Would have to strictly segment off international arrivals & departures with some additional passport control, so connections for domestic --> intl might get more troublesome?
-- Are there objections from CBP/Fed?

Maybe IAH is not set up to be a hub in this way? Are any of UA's hubs ripe for this? In terms of traffic? Probably not. SFO?

Anyway, just to debate the idea.