testycal

Moderator...please move to relevant thread as I am uncertain where this belongs.

I wish to transit LHR from TLV to YVR. If there are flights of course. If I understand correctly the current AA flight to DFW is only for US citizens and or family members and or special others. I am not one of these classes. Therefore I assume as a Canadian citizen wanting to transit to YVR this cannot happen. Am I missing something? I assume the daily current flights between YVR and DFW are transiting Americans and Canadians between the countries and not those arriving from elsewhere especially ie LHR.

Link to US guidelines

Often1

There is no such thing as transit. You will need to enter the US and then depart for Canada and thus, must have the proper documents and qualifications to enter the US as well as, of course, Canada (but, have presumed you have the latter as your profile shows YVR as your location).

Your post is a bit unclear, but it sounds as though you are considering a routing of TLV-LHR-DFW-YVR.

You can see the specifics by entering your data into TIMATIC. That will require citizenship, residency and passport type.

KARFA

You will need to have some ability to enter the US if you wish to do an INT->INT transit there. ESTAs are not valid atm. Only certain categories of visas are allowed. It does seem transit C-1 visas are allowed but I suspect it may be piratically quite difficult to get one atm.

To be honest I don't think anything has changed since when you last asked about this Transiting US authorized airports from LHR so transiting through the US should not be an option you choose when you book.

scottishpoet

its complicated !!

i do not believe Israel is on the US banned country list, so a direct flight from tlv should be OK for transit through the US if you can find one, provided you have not been in any of the excluded areas for 14 days :

Passengers are not permitted to enter or transit the United States if they have entered or transited any Schengen Area member state, the United Kingdom, Ireland, China, Iran or Brazil in the past 14 days due to the outbreak of novel coronavirus, unless they meet one of the following conditions...

there appears to be a list of 11 exclusions so it really is very individual, but i think its safe to say transit through LHR could create a problem

KARFA

Good point. So either Israel to the US non stop or Israel-XXX-US where XXX is not one of these countries:

You would still need some ability to enter the US though to do the transit regardless of where you came from. As the ESTA system is suspended completely I think that may just mean you are back where you started and you can't do it (unless you have a visa?).

scottishpoet

probably needs a conversation with the us embassy which seems a lot of effort for a few hours transit.

May be best to avoid the US, which may mean flying with non preferred airlines, something many of us are having to do owing to limited schedules

KARFA

I think that would be my opinion too. If I was in the OP's shoes I would just look for routings not transiting the US for now.

RGS5526

I thought that Canada had closed its border with the US, so there may be no easily bookable US-Canada flights.

Canada probably has an extensive list of countries from which entry is not possible or requires quarantine, which could further restrict the OP's options.

The quoted list of countries banned from entry to the USA seems to be somewhat out of date, possibly not updated since March. If it still applies, then entry from several current challengers to the title of most infected country is permitted.

Often1

Terms such as "border closing" are largely sloppy work by the media. What matters are the specific orders limiting who may and under what circumstances enter a country. There are plenty (although fewer than pre-Covid) flights between nominally closed countries in Europe with the US and similarly between the US and Canada.

The trick is to look at the specific requirements for entry. In the specific case of the US, there is no such thing as "transit' and thus OP must find a legal basis for entry to the US and then to enter Canada. The wording of the OP is a bit unclear as it appears that he is discussing an itinerary of TLV-LHR-DFW-YVR, requiring a transit of the UK, an entry to the US and then an entry to Canada,

With his citizenship and residency (possibly different) in hand, he can run the permutations through TIMATIC and derive a precise answer which is correct today. That leaves the broader problem of changing rules. For the latter reason, a strong recommendation that OP find the most direct and simplest compliant route between TLV and YVR and book that route.

Confus

Sometimes half-information is worse than no information. Canada has closed its LAND border with the US. Flights are not - and have not been at any point over the last 6 months - restricted between the two countries. Still, this still won’t help anyone who can’t currently pass the US border.

Often1

To be precise, the land border is not closed either. Non-discretionary essential travel is a broad enough category that one could quite literally drive a truck through it.

That doesn't help OP either.

Finkface

Oy vey. Every week, something like this gets posted.

Between the US and Canada, the LAND border is closed to all but essential travel in both directions. Americans are also not permitted to enter Canada by air, again, unless for essential travel. There is no such restriction on Canadians traveling to the US by air - Canadians are permitted to fly to the US. Notwithstanding transit point restrictions, the OP, if s/he is a Canadian citizen, can enter the US. There is no restriction on Canadians entering the US by air (again, not including any US restrictions on other countries visited in the previous 14 days).

testycal

A vigorous discussion dealing with facts and accuracy is always a good thing as generalizations get in the way of reality.