ESpen36

My opinion is that it is less about international transit policy and more about airport layout/configuration. Unlike the Schengen Zone in Europe, for example, the USA does not have routine exit passport control checks...instead, this function is carried out behind the scenes through APIS. There is no sterile international departures zone beyond passport control, beyond which passengers cannot re-enter the USA without be re-processed through Arrivals.

In addition, most major airports in the United States mix departing domestic and departing international passengers. Anyone who wishes can simply walk out the door from the secured area and leave the airport. It would not work to allow I-T-I passengers into this area because they would mingle with domestic passengers in the departure concourses and could walk out the door and be on U.S. soil without being formally processed and granted entry to the United States. Even terminals that handle exclusively international departures (like ORD T5) do not restrict any passenger from leaving the secure area and exiting the airport, or coming into contact with individuals in the USA.

Why is this setup the case in the United States? My theory is that it is because the USA is a very big country, with a vast majority of its flights being domestic. This is NOT the case in most of the rest of the world. Europe has rather small countries, so a lot of flights are international. In fact, Asia has many city-states, where every single departing flight is an international flight (think HKG or SIN). It is very easy in these places to maintain secure, sterile international departures areas and exit immigration checks, because everyone who is flying is also departing the country. But in the USA, it would be very difficult given current layout at most airports to have a secure, sterile international departures area that would prevent international transit passengers from walking out and being on U.S. soil without being formally processed.

Now, as you note, DFW does have an international transit lounge located in the secure international arrivals area. Probably designed pre-9/11. Theoretically, it could be used as a holding pen for international transit passengers connecting to onward international destinations without ever clearing US passport control. However, it would be complicated logistically. Those passengers would have to be escorted back through the sterile international arrival corridors and directly to their aircraft, without coming into contact with any domestic passengers or any non-cleared employees. And what if the aircraft has to be deplaned for mechanical work or a cancellation? It would be hard to prevent the international transit pax, now fully mingled with domestic origin pax, from slipping into the domestic departures area, or from passing items to the domestic passengers to be brought into the United States without federal inspection.

Im a new user

There is no passport control when exiting the UK.International intra-Schengen flights are treated as domestic.

What happens if an international flight has to divert to an airport in United States, if some of the passengers do not have ESTAs or visas?

C46

For that very reason, every airline has to submit 'SecureFlight'-data, to the TSA/DHS - if their international flight includes entering the U.S.-airspace, en-route to the final Non-U.S. destination.

So the DHS has passenger lists, incl. DOB, of all the international flights, that might have to land unscheduled in the U.S.!

Then local CBP - depending on the used airport - has to go old-school. Maybe they would use the old I-94s again?!

Djokison

ESpen36

Correct. UK is not in the Schengen zone.

Correct. However, international intra-Schengen flights (like France to Germany, for example) must depart from a different concourse/terminal than flights entering/leaving Schengen (like Germany to UK, for example), since passport control is necessary when crossing external Schengen borders. In some cases, there is a passport control/police checkpoint when already airside (like at MAD), and beyond that point, only non-Schengen flights depart.

ashill

As noted, at least some US airports, including DFW, actually are configured so that international-to-international connections without entering the US are possible, and it used to be done. DHS apparently suspended the international-to-international transit and transit without visa programs on August 3, 2003 (TRANSIT WITHOUT VISA AND INTERNATIONAL-TO-INTERNATIONAL TRANSIT PROGRAMS, https://photos.state.gov/libraries/a...ments/twov.pdf, and Suspension of Transit Without Visa and ITI Programs), with the following (public) justification:
(It's easy to see how this justification is true for the TWOV program; it's not easy to see how it's true for ITI transits.)

Again, though it would not be possible to allow ITI passengers to mingle with normal departing passengers given the way US airports are configured, it is possible and used to be done.

That is all true, and of course your statement about European countries being small is true even if you consider the whole Schengen area to be one "country": there is are very few places in the world where the fraction of flights that are "domestic" (no passport control required) is anywhere close to as high as in the US. That all certainly contributes to why the US doesn't have a separate, "outside-the-country" international departures area. But it doesn't preclude ITI transits through the US; it is a policy choice by the US government to prohibit them because they think that they need to investigate everyone passing through the US. Whether that is sensible is a topic for another forum.

As you note, there are logistical challenges, though many of them are no different than the ones faced in every country which does allow sterile ITI transit (ie most if not all other countries in the world) with a few additional, US-specific challenges due mostly to the airport configuration. And because ITI transits are a relatively small portion of US airlines' business (and would remain so even if ITI transit were less of a pain in the a**), they probably don't prioritize pushing DHS to make it easier.

I'm just glad they at least allow bags to transit without being claimed.

SoggyDollar

I used this at MIA many times. The "lounge" was a depressing affair with a vending machine and that was about it. If your connecting flight was delayed it could become very uncomfortably crowded. When they discontinued this CBP couldn't cope at MIA with long wait times.

By contrast the present set up is hugely improved. Global entry offers quick routing via TSA pre into the main departure area and the use of all the facilities.

ESpen36

Just wondering...what is the difference between TWOV and ITI? Is ITI just about checked bags, while TWOV is about people?

Often1

Any imperative to reinstitute transit diminishes everytime the US expands its Preclearance operation to another location. Most recently expanding in the Carribean. Passengers departing some of those airports for the US arrive in the US as domestic passengers and thus would not be held in a transit pen if transit were reinstituted.

TWA884

Exactly.

ricktoronto

Only when TWOV existed and people ineligible to enter the US were held in lounges and escorted for a fee. People eligible to enter the USA did just that but of course back then the whole TSA thing took all of 5 minutes and even border clearance was pretty swift as long as you were US or Canadian vs. say, Peruvian.
Then for a while, MIA had an ITI facility for some flights where you bypassed regular immigration into a small immigration/customs/security check and out on one floor higher than arrivals but past security, with ITI bags sent onwards. That was for too efficient and smart so it closed years ago.
Now ITI bags seem to be to certain countries with no definitive list of which (leaving out pre-clearance like Toronto or Dublin) countries are eligible destinations.
I solve the dilemma by only flying AA without a checked bag and fly CM or AV or WS etc. and I am sure others do. AA and MIA would gain if this was easily found. I know fairly certainly that Canada and Bahamas were/are 2 of them, e.g. MGA-MIA-YYZ or PTY-MIA-NAS. Other countries, who knows?

ashill

ashill

s0ssos

The TSA has as its mission reducing efficiency

mvoight

I flew SU SVO-SEA-SFO a couple of times before 9/11, and remember waiting in a glass enclosed lounge for the plane to be processed before continuing to SFO
After 9/11, the time needed for the layover (to clear immigration) resulted in the SEA-SFO segment being dropped. Without having the load from the thru SFO passengers, the SEA-SVO also was dropped