What's the Point of Preclearance in Canada for the US
 

I recently flew from Toronto to the US and pre-cleared US Customs and Immigration in Toronto.

As far as I can tell, from the perspective of the passenger, it is an inferior system to clearing in the US as in arrivals from other countries. You have to get to the airport sufficiently early to allow for the unknown total time to clear security and customs/immigration.

When one comes from a country where there is no preclearance on flights to the US, you allow for security (and outbound passport control if there is any), then, when you arrive in the US, you go through customs/immigration and it takes as long as it takes, but you are not adding on the additional time you need to add on so as to be sure to not miss your flight in a preclearance situation.

Am I missing something here, or is there some way it benefits the passenger? If not, is it benefiting the airline or the US government in some way?

It beats landing in LAX at the same time as a three jumbos from the far East and having to line up with all those non-English speaking people as they try to gain admittance to the US.

I agree, it is a pain to have to come early, especially in YOW where this no lounge (and practically nothing else) once you've cleared US immigration. But I'd prefer to be waiting, sitting down, confident that I'm on my way, than to wait standing in a long, slow-moving line-up at the other end.

To me the logic seems obvious. By pre-clearing customs and immigration then you can fly in to a domestic gate. It allows a greater amount of traffic to the US from Canada without tying up gates in International terminals. Now whether or not this is a benefit to the customer is up for debate.

I think preclearance is really a great advantage and one of the best things that was ever instituted to ease traveling to the US ^ - you might have to come early to the airport but you can actually plan your onward travel much, much easier.

It is no fun at all arriving at a US point of entry and standing 1-2h in the visitor line just to see a CBP officer (JFK and MIA spring to mind as the worst by far), then wait again to retrieve your baggage (or rather try to locate it as you are arriving with a big delay from immigration and the suitcases were already cleared away by the handlers) then rush to TSA and then try to get a connection that you wisely scheduled to be no earlier than at least 2.5 hours after arrival.

Preclearance is also available in Ireland and I would praise the day this would be rolled out to all major European airports but there I am probably dreaming wildly.

Agreed. I've never had the opportunity to use it, but it seems so much easier to just land in the US and go, especially if you've got connecting flights. I'd like to see it implemented in FRA, CDG and London as well. They have enough daily US bound flights to make it worthwhile.

Do the preclearance airports have actual TSA agents screening passengers through? That might be a problem with more preclearance, although in reality, the folks at the above airports do a good job of screening passengers as it is (in my opinion)

Have only used preclearance in Canada so far and there they wear the TSA uniforms. Not sure whether these are actually US personnel on secondment to Canada but I would doubt that. And the same problem would apply to Ireland (which I have not used yet) and it would really very much surprise me if they send US personnel over there to perform these tasks. My guess is that these are local contractors, supplied with TSA uniforms and probably subject to frequent compliance checks by US supervisors.

It benefits the passenger, particularly if you have a connection and if you think about it, it's that many more cities you can get direct flights to.

Bob H

It really makes sense for flights coming from Europe to the US, as the airlines have to factor in a nice chunk of time for customs/immigration in scheduling connecting flights. Usually when I fly back into the US, I don't get back home until late because it seems like I'm always on the last flight. If I could just get off the plane and go straight to my next flight, I could probably connect on an earlier flight.

Ah but how many pax miss their flights because of the US immigration queues in Canada? How many flights get massively delayed (thus misconnecting some pax for their next flight) because of those same queues?

I haven't had too many Canada->US flights, but typically queue is about 2 hours and I see plenty of people in the same queue miss their flight.

It means that if you do get refused entry you get to go home that day rather than being put in a holding cell then sent back home at your own expense

And whilst it would be nice to do pre-clearance at London airports - have you considered the problems it would create for people connecting through London in order to go to the US. It would increase the minimum connection time by at least an hour.

And how do you handle flights that go from country A to the US via country B where you will have passengers who are just going between countries A & B

They are US personnel assigned to Canada. They are not contract workers.

No different than having US staff assigned overseas in consultates and embassies.

Depending on the terminal, generally none. The airlines work with US Immigration at the airports to pull people out of line if the lines are horrendous and there is a reasonable chance of missing your flight. It is common to hear "Those PAX on UAXXX please raise your hand... then they are pulled out of line and taken to 1 or 2 agents who clear them.

This was sort of hinted at earlier, but I think it also allows flights from Canadian airports to a lot of US airports that do not have customs and immigration facilities. One could argue that the same benefit should work the other direction, but I believe there are probably more "second-tier" cities (warranting transborder flights, but without immigration facilities) south of the border.

Much more advantageous to do the pre-clearance thing. In the long run, you're saving time. Because, if you come in from another country without pre-clearance, and you're connecting in the States, you have to go through the security BS again*.

I've missed two and three hours connections at ORD because of having to reclaim my bag full of my deadly shampoo and toothpaste.

I agree with an earlier poster, it's MUCH better than having to wait for three or four 747s full of passengers.


* = All that said -- Be forewarned that if you check your bag in Canada and are connecting in the States, the TSA still looks at your bag at the connecting US airport -- as if you just checked in. So, if you have a tight connection from Canada in the States, it might behoove you to have enough connecting time.

So true. Quite a few northern US cities might not be able to afford the whole customs setup, but by the preclearance they can handle a few trans-border commuter flights with no problem. No sense in paying all that money if your airport has 2 or 3 Horizon Dash 8s from Canada as your 'international' flight load.

I'd still like to see the US and Canada enter into a Schengen type agreement with regards to their border crossings.