GUWonder

Prior night depositing of checked luggage may bite the dust at ARN if this comes to ARN, but I hope to be wrong about that.

IAD, as I indicated above, is one of the worst US airports of entry. Not only are the lines too often long/slow, the variance in time is also awful; and the attitude of CBP at this airport of entry is amongst the worst in the US. It's worse than ORD or EWR in these ways as far as I'm concerned.

I indeed have Global Entry; but more often than use GE kiosks, I use the APC kiosks (open to non-GE too) as a US citizen since I'm rather often in a travel party where not everyone has GE status and some are neither US citizens nor GE members.

gnaget

Well, I nearly always take the late UA flight from FRA, i.e. ARN-FRA-IAD. The SK flight arrives right at the worst time of day. I highly recommend UA 933. You arrive to an empty immigration hall!

SK connecting passengers are shuttled to the Midfield immigration (or at least were until recently. If not then it must relate to SK leaving the Atlantic ++ JV). This place is a hell-hole in mid-afternoon. There can be long queues 30+ min for security after the immigration. If you don't have luggage you can choose to go to the main terminal.

copperred

You clearly have never flown into CLT, if you think IAD is bad. EWR is a terrible airport in every sense. UA desperately trying to funnel all its flights through that hellhole.

SK2751

Admittedly this is a bit special though. There is a *lot* of traffic out of that area to US airports.

The YYZ preclearance also makes a lot of sense, as there is a lot of origin traffic to US from there.

I actually think CBP is not so bad for direct flights, but it is terrible for connections, as it increases MCT in this airport. That's why I am not sure why should it be beneficial for SK to have CBP in CPH. At the same time I can see how it can be beneficial for UA who can offer more connections from American hubs that SK would reach into domestic area.

GUWonder

I've flown into CLT -- just not as often as into BOS, JFK, EWR, PHL, IAD, RDU, ATL, and MIA (speaking of the East Coast time zone airports of entry with some big 3 alliance airline carrier service TATL). FLL is the one I've not used for TATL travel airports of entry.

While the following data isn't perfect and even some airports take issue with the numbers, it's still worth checking out: http://awt.cbp.gov

Are we yet at the point where DY serves more US cities non-stop out of ARN than SK?

RedChili

They built a new lounge after passport control for the 50 premium seats on EK's 77W. I would not be surprised to see a new lounge past CBP for the 69 premium seats on each SK flight to EWR and ORD, plus the 16 premium seats on UA (a total of 154 premium seats on Star Alliance from ARN to the USA each day).

RedChili

DY serves JFK, FLL, OAK, and LAX (seasonal).

GUWonder

If their departure times end up being close to the SK, DL and/or UA flight times, then lines for the Schengen exit passport control and/or the CBP PreClearance are probably going to be quite the crowded scene during peak periods of the year. And if your checked baggage gets a pull by CBP at ARN, things are going to slow down even more for more than just the passengers with the pulled baggage.

It's economically cheaper in the net to just fix the processing times in the US by allocating more resources to do so in the US or change the way processing is done in the US. But this CBP PreClearance expansion push for continental European participation is driven more by "security concerns"/paranoia than anything else. It's even being sold as a way to try to minimize the odds of the US VWP becoming history for some.

RedChili

If I remember correctly:

UA is around 9:00
SK to ORD is 10:25
SK to EWR is 10:40
DL is around 12:00-13:00
DY to LAX around 14:00
DY to JFK at 17:25
DY to FLL and OAK around 18:30

FlyingMoose

Note that the DL flight is seasonal and I have my doubts about them sustaining it. Unless they change it from JFK to ATL which would be very welcome.

TPJ

Really? This huge investment for 4/5 daily frequencies (SK: ORD/EWR, UA: EWR, DY: normally a single flight to NYC or LAX or Florida, DL in the summer only). Plus 2 SK flights depart at more or less the same time... I can imagine these huge lines, flight delays etc.

RedChili

Today it's on average 6 daily frequencies in the summer. But that number has grown over the past few years, and I guess the idea is to make ARN more attractive as a hub for U.S. flights so that there will be more flights in the future.

gnaget

The fact that ARN is not a hub (unlike CPH) for incoming connecting traffic on its transatlantic routes is exactly why it might work. That is why it works ok in Ireland and Abu Dhabi. (I am disregarding incoming Swedish domestic traffic that typically has no choice but to connect thru ARN. And I suspect that a wise passenger from GOT will choose CPH for his connection.)

I am also guessing that the Irish routes have a large per centage of American tourists visiting the old country. Ethiad probably has a greater proportion of non-Americans and passengers with visas. So this is why these flights are often delayed by several hours.

I can guarantee that this will turn into a disaster if it is implemented. And I assure you that SK is not going to open a lounge there at the end of the F pier.

SK2751

I think CBP is very detrimental for a hub. It makes travels longer "in the middle", it makes it harder to organize the hub terminals, makes it harder for people to use facilities like restaurants, shops and lounges (due to further segmentation), and it decreases the number of legal connections due to increased MCT. I really think that CBP makes a good sense only if there is a lot of origin traffic. If hub traffic is prevailing, then it does not make sense.

GUWonder

By measure of the bag tags on my SK arrivals in the US, the majority of the ARN-US passengers on my flights seem to have originated their trip at ARN. I'm not sure if this is representative of the overall traffic on SK ARN-US flights, but it is what I've seen at baggage claim.

It would be interesting to see the figures separately and jointly for ARN-EWR and ARN-ORD to see what proportion are originating at ARN, and what proportion are connecting same-day onto onward US flights from ORD/EWR.

For my flights, ARN-EWR seems to be largely O&D while ARN-ORD has a higher proportion of connecting traffic beyond ORD. But this is based on what I see of bag tags on my flights, and there may well be a different representation between empirical statistical evidence and empirical evidence from anecdotal experiences.