If both DUB and SNN have right now. Will US Pre-clearance ever come to LHR? The demand is way higher than Irish airports in terms of the number of passengers and daily flights.

Not any time soon, although it is planned at Manchester in the T2 rebuild subject to inter government agreements in next few years

At Heathrow with US departures across three terminals it would cost a fortune and need so many US border agents on station it just won’t be worth it imho.

I think maybe in the long term once the toast rack is complete it might be possible to have 1 pier shared between airlines and dedicated to US flights. But that'd be many years in the future and who knows.

LupineChemist wrote:

I think maybe in the long term once the toast rack is complete it might be possible to have 1 pier shared between airlines and dedicated to US flights. But that'd be many years in the future and who knows.

That's what I think, it's easier to have 1-2 pier specifically designed for US flights.

LondonXtreme wrote:

LupineChemist wrote:

I think maybe in the long term once the toast rack is complete it might be possible to have 1 pier shared between airlines and dedicated to US flights. But that'd be many years in the future and who knows.

That's what I think, it's easier to have 1-2 pier specifically designed for US flights.

I doubt BA would want that now that they have most of their flights under one roof. It just causes too much inconvenience for connecting passengers and makes it more complicated for BA to turn around aircraft if they have to tow them between terminals.

LondonXtreme wrote:

LupineChemist wrote:

I think maybe in the long term once the toast rack is complete it might be possible to have 1 pier shared between airlines and dedicated to US flights. But that'd be many years in the future and who knows.

That's what I think, it's easier to have 1-2 pier specifically designed for US flights.

Less a pier and more an entire terminal... it would need to serve literally dozens of widebody departures per day, and royally (no pun intended) muck up what BA has finally established at T5, which is some semblance of a coherent connecting facility.

B747forever wrote:

LondonXtreme wrote:

LupineChemist wrote:

I think maybe in the long term once the toast rack is complete it might be possible to have 1 pier shared between airlines and dedicated to US flights. But that'd be many years in the future and who knows.

That's what I think, it's easier to have 1-2 pier specifically designed for US flights.

I doubt BA would want that now that they have most of their flights under one roof. It just causes too much inconvenience for connecting passengers and makes it more complicated for BA to turn around aircraft if they have to tow them between terminals.

The idea would be in the future where there aren't really separate terminals as such any more and the transit train would go all the way across the airport ATL style. Obviously this will have to be well after T3 is history.

Back in the day(1980s) LHR used to have pre-clearance.

As far as it happening today, back in 2015 DHS announced both MAN and LHR were selected for preclearance pending negotiations with the UK government. In 2016 Edinburgh was also added to the list pending final negotiations with the UK side.

There just isn’t the space or man power available for such operations.

They would have sacrifice gate/stand space, then in peak hours they wouldn’t have enough space to sell the pre-clearance as a product and during the off-peak hours that space would have to sit empty and idle.

The other thing to take into consideration. The likes of SNN/DUB/AUH to name but a few, want too entice you to use their facilities. LHR on its own has such a huge pull on customers (pax & Airlines), it doesn’t need Pre-Clearance.

OMAA

LupineChemist wrote:

B747forever wrote:

LondonXtreme wrote:

That's what I think, it's easier to have 1-2 pier specifically designed for US flights.

I doubt BA would want that now that they have most of their flights under one roof. It just causes too much inconvenience for connecting passengers and makes it more complicated for BA to turn around aircraft if they have to tow them between terminals.

The idea would be in the future where there aren't really separate terminals as such any more and the transit train would go all the way across the airport ATL style. Obviously this will have to be well after T3 is history.

That just sounds overly complicated and mighty expensive. So someone traveling with BA to the US would check in at T5, take a train to preclearance and then a train back to T5. The whole train system would need to be segregated and only dedicated to those traveling to the US. Also, you would need to keep those pax segregated in each terminal after preclearing. I dont see that working.

LAXintl wrote:

Back in the day(1980s) LHR used to have pre-clearance.

As far as it happening today, back in 2015 DHS announced both MAN and LHR were selected for preclearance pending negotiations with the UK government. In 2016 Edinburgh was also added to the list pending final negotiations with the UK side.

And since 2015/16 the political compass in the USA and U.K. has changed significantly - I can't imagine it is too high on the list of priorities right now...

Heathrow is just too big and too complicated to have every flight to the USA pre-cleared. However you could have a partial pre-clearance, where some flights to the USA are pre-cleared and others are not. Pre-clearance would only be available at a certain part of the airport which might be far away from the rest of their flights. Each airline decides if they want to make use of the pre-clearance or not, both options have their advantages and disadvantages.

Speaking of that, at Dublin there currently is pre-clearance and all airlines flying from Dublin to the USA make use of it. However, suppose an airline wants to fly from Dublin to the USA without using pre-clearance. Would that still be possible? Or is pre-clearance mandatory?

PatrickZ80 wrote:

Heathrow is just too big and too complicated to have every flight to the USA pre-cleared.

In addition to too big and complicated i would add "cramped". The place is a cramped mess during peak hours...add to that the pre clearance hassles and delays as a bottleneck with a long line of passengers building up at the bottleneck? May be just offer it out of a separate terminal at LGW for O&D passengers (is there space?)...or perhaps a separate terminal in LHR (where is the space?).

PatrickZ80 wrote:

Heathrow is just too big and too complicated to have every flight to the USA pre-cleared. However you could have a partial pre-clearance, where some flights to the USA are pre-cleared and others are not. Pre-clearance would only be available at a certain part of the airport which might be far away from the rest of their flights. Each airline decides if they want to make use of the pre-clearance or not, both options have their advantages and disadvantages.

Speaking of that, at Dublin there currently is pre-clearance and all airlines flying from Dublin to the USA make use of it. However, suppose an airline wants to fly from Dublin to the USA without using pre-clearance. Would that still be possible? Or is pre-clearance mandatory?

I don’t think pre clearance is mandatory, I’m assuming any flights not wanting to make use of it would just depart the other area of DUBs terminal.

PatrickZ80 wrote:

Heathrow is just too big and too complicated to have every flight to the USA pre-cleared. However you could have a partial pre-clearance, where some flights to the USA are pre-cleared and others are not. Pre-clearance would only be available at a certain part of the airport which might be far away from the rest of their flights. Each airline decides if they want to make use of the pre-clearance or not, both options have their advantages and disadvantages.

Speaking of that, at Dublin there currently is pre-clearance and all airlines flying from Dublin to the USA make use of it. However, suppose an airline wants to fly from Dublin to the USA without using pre-clearance. Would that still be possible? Or is pre-clearance mandatory?

Preclearance is not mandatory and some airlines do not avail of it at preclearance airports (e.g. ET at DUB and KU at SNN).

DobboDobbo wrote:

And since 2015/16 the political compass in the USA and U.K. has changed significantly - I can't imagine it is too high on the list of priorities right now...

I'd say that regarding the UK side, the changes make it more likely.

Correct me if I am wrong but I thought the host country would have to pay for a pre-clearance facility. I also thought the pre-clearance in Ireland had to do with immigration levels in the past - better for the airlines to have pax denied admission before they fly them and back messing their seat inventory.

PatrickZ80 wrote:

Heathrow is just too big and too complicated to have every flight to the USA pre-cleared.

You can argue it's a facilities issue. It's not a manpower issue. YYZ is the #2 foreign gateway and had 12.5 million non-stop passengers to the U.S.

LHR had 14.6 million for the 12 months ended Sept. '17. CUN and MEX each had more than #5 NRT.

I’m against it unless the US is willing to build UK preclearance facilities at the top 10 gateways from the US to the UK.

LAXintl wrote:

Back in the day(1980s) LHR used to have pre-clearance.

Really? Where and for which airlines?

Malayil wrote:

I’m against it unless the US is willing to build UK preclearance facilities at the top 10 gateways from the US to the UK.

No problem. The agreements are reciprocal and the UK is within its rights to staff such facilities in the U.S.. Considering however that not even Canada is willing to take on such a costly venture, doubt the UK will when its Border Force is so understaffed.

fbgdavidson wrote:

LAXintl wrote:

Back in the day(1980s) LHR used to have pre-clearance.

Really? Where and for which airlines?

T-3 and briefly T-4. PA and BA participated. Maybe also TW, but I don't have first-hand knowledge.

Malayil wrote:

I’m against it unless the US is willing to build UK preclearance facilities at the top 10 gateways from the US to the UK.

Does the UK have preclearence?

MIflyer12 wrote:

PatrickZ80 wrote:

Heathrow is just too big and too complicated to have every flight to the USA pre-cleared.

You can argue it's a facilities issue. It's not a manpower issue. YYZ is the #2 foreign gateway and had 12.5 million non-stop passengers to the U.S.

LHR had 14.6 million for the 12 months ended Sept. '17. CUN and MEX each had more than #5 NRT.

I would suggest the difference is at YYZ, where I used pre-clearance at Terminal 1 in 2011 is that there is a dual purpose gate area which can be segregated depending on amount of cross border flights from the rest of the International departures. at Heathrow, that's not really possible, as already domestic and international Passengers are mixed at both Terminals 5 (BA) and 2 (BE and EI), so having an extra segregated area in an already tight space is probably difficult (and Ferrovial would hardly want to stop customers- sorry, passengers, accessing some retail areas of the Terminals).

As B747forever pointed out, it would potentially mess up BA Aircraft arriving from Asia/Africa/Canada/South America that were due to turn around for flights to the US, as they would arrive at Gate areas for non-US arrivals, and would have to be towed to Gates for US arrivals. This wouldn't be so much an issue at YYZ (where only AC and WS are affected, as AA, DL und UA just turn round to where they came from), for example, where I'd suggest half of AC's narrowbody departures are to the US (the other half are domestics) [admittedly I don't know enough about WS' operations] - for all BA have a lot of flights to the US, it can't be as high a proportion of longhaul departures. The same issue would apply to VS (albeit they have very few non US flights any more) - again, AA, DL, NZ and UA turn round so would stay at the same gate. This could even cause issues for AI should they wish to use pre-clearance, as their flight would arrive from AMD on a non US gate, and through Passengers would have to collect bags and clear US Immigration and recheck bags whilst the Aircraft was being moved to a US Gate, all within the 2 hours 15 minutes until scheduled departure to EWR.

TWA772LR wrote:

Malayil wrote:

I’m against it unless the US is willing to build UK preclearance facilities at the top 10 gateways from the US to the UK.

Does the UK have preclearence?

In Calais for the Ferry to Dover and for Eurotunnel. But at Airports is another matter...

To be honest, there's not many places it would make much sense to have staff stationed fulltime - probably only JFK, but again only if all departures (AA, BA, DL, DY and VS) could be grouped in one Terminal.

It's not like departures to the States from Europe or Canada that are spread out over the day, as apart from 2 or 3 day time flights, most departures from almost all Airports Stateside are within a 4 or 5 hour window due to night curfews at either end, which doesn't really mandate having fulltime staff on a Station.

Who pays for these such facilities in say YUL?

Bhoy wrote:

MIflyer12 wrote:

PatrickZ80 wrote:

Heathrow is just too big and too complicated to have every flight to the USA pre-cleared.

You can argue it's a facilities issue. It's not a manpower issue. YYZ is the #2 foreign gateway and had 12.5 million non-stop passengers to the U.S.

LHR had 14.6 million for the 12 months ended Sept. '17. CUN and MEX each had more than #5 NRT.

I would suggest the difference is at YYZ, where I used pre-clearance at Terminal 1 in 2011 is that there is a dual purpose gate area which can be segregated depending on amount of cross border flights from the rest of the International departures. at Heathrow, that's not really possible, as already domestic and international Passengers are mixed at both Terminals 5 (BA) and 2 (BE and EI), so having an extra segregated area in an already tight space is probably difficult (and Ferrovial would hardly want to stop customers- sorry, passengers, accessing some retail areas of the Terminals).

As B747forever pointed out, it would potentially mess up BA Aircraft arriving from Asia/Africa/Canada/South America that were due to turn around for flights to the US, as they would arrive at Gate areas for non-US arrivals, and would have to be towed to Gates for US arrivals. This wouldn't be so much an issue at YYZ (where only AC and WS are affected, as AA, DL und UA just turn round to where they came from), for example, where I'd suggest half of AC's narrowbody departures are to the US (the other half are domestics) [admittedly I don't know enough about WS' operations] - for all BA have a lot of flights to the US, it can't be as high a proportion of longhaul departures. The same issue would apply to VS (albeit they have very few non US flights any more) - again, AA, DL, NZ and UA turn round so would stay at the same gate. This could even cause issues for AI should they wish to use pre-clearance, as their flight would arrive from AMD on a non US gate, and through Passengers would have to collect bags and clear US Immigration and recheck bags whilst the Aircraft was being moved to a US Gate, all within the 2 hours 15 minutes until scheduled departure to EWR.

Maybe they can do partial preclearance at Heathrow.
For example, US3 and VS flights can all gather in the same terminal, whereas BA don't use preclearance.

LondonXtreme wrote:

Maybe they can do partial preclearance at Heathrow.
For example, US3 and VS flights can all gather in the same terminal, whereas BA don't use preclearance.

It would be pretty interesting to have DL, VS, and UA have a concourse with preclearance, while AA and BA have a joint concourse which includes all US-bound BA flights that also has preclearance. Maybe this is something that can happen in the coming 10 years.

Bhoy wrote:

To be honest, there's not many places it would make much sense to have staff stationed fulltime - probably only JFK, but again only if all departures (AA, BA, DL, DY and VS) could be grouped in one Terminal.

Norwegian doesn't fly from Heathrow, only from Gatwick.

No room. Period. And too complicated.

B752OS wrote:

Who pays for these such facilities in say YUL?

The host airports pay for the facilities and the US CBP pay rent as far as I can tell. As an example, on January 15, 2015, Incheon International Airport announced that it would not introduce the U.S. preclearance after an in-depth analysis concluded that U.S. preclearance could lead to decreased sales at duty-free shops, despite the potential income from usage fees remitted for the use of preclearance space.

Themotionman wrote:

DobboDobbo wrote:

And since 2015/16 the political compass in the USA and U.K. has changed significantly - I can't imagine it is too high on the list of priorities right now...

I'd say that regarding the UK side, the changes make it more likely.

Quite right, and in the long term I agree.

In the short run, the most pressing issues raised by the change in the UK's political compass will occupy the majority of government bandwidth, kicking things like USPC down the list (assuming USPC is not a priority).

jfk777 wrote:

Too complicated and too many terminals involved. You would have to rearrange all of Heathrow airport. Who is going to pay for this fantasy project ? People who say this should happen have no clue how many flights go from LHR to the USA.

Rearrange Heathrow you say?

https://www.heathrowexpansion.com/the-expansion-plan/

Nothing to do with US preclearance.

jfk777 wrote:

Too complicated and too many terminals involved. You would have to rearrange all of Heathrow airport. Who is going to pay for this fantasy project ? People who say this should happen have no clue how many flights go from LHR to the USA.

It would be a substantial investment but really would not be that difficult to implement. Only three terminals have Atlantic operations, T2, T3 and T5.

T5, one of the satellites would need converting (or construct a new one) and I would use C as an example simply because it has the space above departures where no lounges have been installed as an ideal spot for the hall. I simple swing gate system could be installed much like T2 in Dublin.

Likewise something similar could be done at T2 with perhaps one end of the satellites pier being allocated to USPC and again a simply implemented swing gate system so the gates could be used more efficiently.

T3, well this Terminal is a mess on a good day. It’s had its day and would probably require a major overhaul but perhaps annexing the gates 16-22 pier or the 30-40s would be the best option but I’m not 100% familiar with this terminal.

The other option is to simply convert T4 to purely USPC departures and move all flights to there but not sure how either HAA or the airlines may feel about that!

PatrickZ80 wrote:

Bhoy wrote:

To be honest, there's not many places it would make much sense to have staff stationed fulltime - probably only JFK, but again only if all departures (AA, BA, DL, DY and VS) could be grouped in one Terminal.

Norwegian doesn't fly from Heathrow, only from Gatwick.

I was talking about potential UK preclearance at JFK. Otherwise I'd have substituted UA for DY if I was talking about LHR rather than JFK.

VS11 wrote:

Correct me if I am wrong but I thought the host country would have to pay for a pre-clearance facility. I also thought the pre-clearance in Ireland had to do with immigration levels in the past - better for the airlines to have pax denied admission before they fly them and back messing their seat inventory.

The old immigration only precheck was brought in as the rejection rate was getting so high as to endanger Ireland's visa waiver programme membership. By refusing them in Ireland it didn't count for those purposes.

tonystan wrote:

It would be a substantial investment but really would not be that difficult to implement. Only three terminals have Atlantic operations, T2, T3 and T5.

You state that as if there are lots of terminals, those "only three" terminals represent 75% of the terminals and 88% of the passengers.

tonystan wrote:

The other option is to simply convert T4 to purely USPC departures and move all flights to there but not sure how either HAA or the airlines may feel about that!

I don't think terminal 4 handled enough passengers last year for all LHR-USA traffic, even despite the fact the US traffic is heavily biased in the time it goes out?

Oh, and another thought - lots of traffic ex-LHR is connecting traffic through the Joint Ventures, so it wouldn't be as easy as at YYZ or DUB where connecting Pax will (for the most part) all be under one roof.
Pax arriving at Terminal 2 on an EI or BE codeshare connecting to a T3 VS (BE) or T5 (BA) flight - would they have to claim luggage at T3, and carry it to wherever preclearance was, or would there be a YVR style video link to identify their bags?
Likewise BA Pax arriving at T5 connecting to an AA flight out of T3, or even AF, KL or AZ passenger arriving at T4 connecting to VS or DL in T3?
T2 would be the only terminal that offered guaranteed under same roof JV connections (UA-LH/LX/SK/OS), which would mean a lot of extra segregation for keeping arriving Pax, transiting Pax who weren't security cleared, transiting Pax to US waiting for preclearance, precleared departing US Pax and security cleared departing Pax separate.
Suddenly all Terminals ARE involved, to some degree, and you can bet your bottom dollar none of the Alliances want their JV to be without a preclearance that others enjoy for marketing reasons.

JibberJim wrote:

tonystan wrote:

It would be a substantial investment but really would not be that difficult to implement. Only three terminals have Atlantic operations, T2, T3 and T5.

You state that as if there are lots of terminals, those "only three" terminals represent 75% of the terminals and 88% of the passengers.

tonystan wrote:

The other option is to simply convert T4 to purely USPC departures and move all flights to there but not sure how either HAA or the airlines may feel about that!

I don't think terminal 4 handled enough passengers last year for all LHR-USA traffic, even despite the fact the US traffic is heavily biased in the time it goes out?

Doesn’t make my point any less relevant! A costly albeit relatively easy system to implement.

Won't happen. You do understand that building a facility in a place with as little room and as over crowded as LHR would be very difficult and very very very expensive. They were pretty easy to add onto SNN and DUB. LHR would be a 1000x more complicated a project than those airports for so many reasons.

It's logistically impossible in Heathrow, at least until they complete the toast rack in 2396. Likewise for Gatwick.
Maybe Boris Island could've been built with preclearance, maybe.

Don't have pre-clearance anywhere. Have fit for purpose Immigration and Customs at the point of entry.

You know which flights are arriving well in advance.
You know the vast majority of the passengers and their entry requirements well in advance.

Pre-clearance is a bad solution to a problem that shouldn't exist in the first place.

Quit moving your problems to somewhere else.

Yes the UK could learn from this too.

The UK is more likely to join the Schengen Zone than sign up for US pre-clearance.