I am not Canadian but have flown between Toronto Pearson (YYZ) and La Guardia and, less frequently JFK many times; in the past 8 years it’s been several times a year. Possibly because it’s been direct flights I have not been through secondary screening. Of course, after posting this my luck may run out! I’m in Toronto right now and will be prepared for an experience like @Spoons had on my flight back next week.
Last summer my brother gave me a little pouch to attach to my bike, not realizing that he had left a tiny pocket knife with a 2 inch blade in it. CATSA found it in my carry on suitcase and confiscated it but did not give me a hard time.
Toronto Pearson has a US Immigration checkpoint for passengers going to La Guardia and other US domestic airports that don’t have their own immigration checkpoints, but I think I also went through it at Pearson when headed to JFK.
LGA is one of those rare major US airports that don’t have a CPB presence, but AFAIK all US-bound commercial flights from YYZ are precleared through the same identical process. Both Terminal 1 and Terminal 3 have CPB preclearance facilities.
From the insider POV, bringing a planeload of non-immigration-screened passengers to a non-immigration airport is a nightmare in the making. Regardless of which nationality is involved. We try very, very hard not to set up that situation. It can end well, but that’s sure not the way to bet. I got painted into that corner in late Apr and we escaped by the skin of our teeth.
As applied to the current flow of the thread …
Having everybody departing Pearson for the USA fully cleared there is much simpler than doing it only on the individual flights where it’s strictly necessary according to the pre-departure planned destination.
Don’t know the term, but I have had secondary screening a few times. Although thorough, I would not have described it as intimate. I thought they were reasonably polite and professional. Took a while though.
Okay, that requires the story of what happened in late April.
The only situation I can think of where that might occur is where an aircraft carrying non-immigration-screened passengers has an emergency of some sort and must divert to the nearest airport, regardless of whether there is US Customs or not at that airport. I could be wrong, though.
Yes, as others have said, it is possible to leave a number of Canadian airports where you go through US Customs. Mostly, these are the bigger Canadian airports (Toronto, Calgary, Edmonton, Vancouver, Halifax, among others). It is handy—I’ve taken flights from Toronto to Washington DC through Reagan National, which has no US Customs. Easy-peasy to preclear US Customs in Toronto and go to Reagan National instead of Dulles. But you find on the return that the duty-free store at Reagan National is quite small and poorly stocked.
On point with my OP, I am drafting a letter to my MP (Member of Parliament, same as a US Congressperson) regarding the “SSSS” on the YQL - YYC portion of my journey.
Not all that exciting; rather more mundane. But time-consuming, very time-consuming. In my case not an emergency; weather.
Background:
Miami has immigration. Nearby alternate airports are Ft. Lauderdale (yes immigration), Palm Beach (no), Regional Southwest AKA Ft. Myers (no), and farther away, Tampa (yes) and Orlando (yes). Other backups are Nassau or Freeport in the Bahamas, which are closer, but have Bahamian immigration which has its own complexities for unplanned drop-ins.
During much of the year, thunderstorms are forecast to occur everywhere in South Florida every day but only intermittently / spottily. So no matter which of Miami, Ft. Lauderdale, or Palm Beach (domestic only) we have as a destination, we plan one or both of the others as alternates. Rarely do any two close down at once and all three at once is unheard of except during a hurricane. Also, unlike what commonly happens in the Midwest with frontal thunderstorms, here they tend to move past the airport quickly as individuals. Things tend to get unworkably bad for 10-15 minutes then open right back up again. And for many of the smaller storms, they aren’t bad enough to prevent landings & takeoffs, just slow down the flow rate for awhile.
The story:
We’re coming from a Caribbean island to Miami. Thunderstorms move in and cover both Miami and Ft. Lauderdale and just won’t quit. We hold as long as we can then drop into Palm Beach as planned. No immigration, so nobody can get off. Not even us. It’s late afternoon, but it’s already very late in our work days. He legally started at 0200 and I at 0400. We’ve actually been on the jobsite since about 0630.
We make our plans, gas up with as much as we can carry and still make landing weight, which is plenty to get there, but doesn’t buy us a lot of holding time in the air. We finish our prep to go and about 50 minutes after parking we’re ready to move again. Which is pretty good time as these things go. The thunderstorms don’t move. It’s nice enough here, but 40 & 60 miles away at the other two airports, they’re getting hammered. So we sit at the gate while the passengers party or fume as suits their personalities. More of a party crowd today, which is good to a point.
Now the vice starts to close. The sky is full of holding jets, PBI and the other airports are full of diverted jets that all want to get to their planned MIA or FLL destination, the weather there is sitting, but oh-so-slowly clearing out, and now a fresh storm is vigorously forming upwind of PBI where we are and it should arrive in ~90 minutes if the winds do as we predict. Which might prevent departures for gosh knows how long. Meantime the FO will run out of workday and need to be relieved in about the same timeframe if we’re not airborne before then. And still we wait; nobody anywhere is going to MIA now.
Lotta fuses burning on different timebombs there. ATC’s general priority scheme is to clear the logjam in the sky, then start flowing airplanes into the now-opened airport, starting with the most distant. Under that scheme, we’re about number 75 in line. Not good. Of course ATC HQ and the airline HQs work together to swip and swap to achieve other goals ATC is unaware of. Like our problem w immigration and duty day. Cue lots of back and forth on the phone between me, airline HQ, and ATC HQ. Eventually we get shuffled up to the front of the line and Miami starts accepting inbound takeoffs again. So we start up, and head towards the runway.
As it starts raining lightly. On the way out we’re facing opposite to the direction of take-off, and can see the approaching storm. Which has matured into a robust lighting maker in the gathering twilight. It’s not close enough to form a hazard for us yet, but another 5-10 minutes and it’ll be in our shit and we’re not going anywhere until it passes. By which time the FO will have timed out. Hope we get airborne before then. Get out to the runway and tower says “No can launch; Miami just shut off again for saturation.” AKA “the sky is full of jets and storms and they’re down there tearing their hair out trying to ad lib this high speed shape-shifting puzzle safely.”
I call HQ, we get an extra extra dispensation, tell local ATC to check w Miami, they get the green light, we get the green light, and off we launch. As the rain is building up and with 7 whole minutes to spare. Seven.
No sweat there; didn’t even get our hair mussed. Had a bunch of zigging and zagging to cover the 60 miles from PBI to MIA, but it was smoother than expected. Miami was shining in clear crisp light of the just setting sun and the amount of water on the ground everywhere in the city and on the airport was very impressive. Even by Miami tropical deluge standards this was one to remember. The sun sets just before we land.
Seven minutes. At the end of 16 hours at work it comes down to that.
SSSS is not much publicized. There’d be no reason for anyone, passenger or crew, to know of it until it happens to them. Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!
As to “why me?” …
As I explained in an earlier post, it was an artifact of how their computer program identified suspicious travel patterns. It was also a number of years ago and since then they seem to have refined the algorithm to not consider what’s normal for crewfolks to look suspicious. Which pattern would look decidedly odd if done by a regular person.
Have they connected their algorithm to the national crew database so they know to exclude us and our weird travel on that basis? I have no idea. They sure won’t discuss the details with anyone, and if they did tell me I couldn’t tell you.
Unrelated to my personal experience above…
SSSS seems to be much less of a frequent thing for passengers these days versus say, 2015-2018. At one time it seemed their real goal was to keep their explosive swabbing and scanning tools busy doing something to somebody even if it was pointless. Since then, and especially now post-COVID, it seems their emphasis has shifted to moving the max volume of passengers with the least optional special double-checking as possible. Being badly short-handed might have something to do with that.
I hadn’t heard of this. I’ve had my crotch grabbed but this sounds much worse. If it was my personal electronic devices I’d be fairly pissed. My work ones, not so much.
Au contraire; I think the airlines pay the US government a hefty for this service. It is enitrely to their benefit and the US has to maintain agents there full-time.
The US and Canada are trying to set up a pre-and-post-clearance service at Montreal’s Central (rail) Station. The basic idea is to avoid lengthy delays at the border for the Adirondack between Montreal and NY (and for the Montrealer between Montreal and Washington if that should ever be restored). US and Canadian customs agents would take the soon-to-be-opened shuttle service between Central Station and Trudeau airport to meet the incoming (for Canadian agents) and outgoing (for US agents) trains. It sounds like pie-in-the-sky but they are having serious talks about it. My son, who works for Amtrak was here for one session of talks.
As for the OP, I have a pacemaker and therefore are always subject to the pat down. I have to empty my pockets and put everything but my billfold on the conveyor for X-rays. I hold the money in one hand and they pat me down. It is routine and they are pretty superficial about it.
Could well be. I’d not be surprised that the airlines pay the US government something for the service.
What I meant was also suspect the US government pays a heft rent to the local airport operator for the space they occupy. Which as you suggest may in fact be partly or fully offset by the airlines paying the Feds for the service. Plus the airlines paying to rent terminal space for themselves from the airport operator.
My wife got the SSSS yesterday in Zurich for a flight to San Francisco. My son and I were on the same flight, indeed on the same reservation, but we didn’t get tagged.
According to her, it was a horrible experience. Very invasive body pat down. When she came out, she was crying.
I can believe it. I’ve had tailors that were less invasive when measuring my inseam.
Like I said, you buy me flowers and dinner, you can touch me there. You don’t, and you can’t. Oh shit, groping me like that is a condition of entering the United States? Well, okay, you grope me as much as you like. Don’t mind if I laugh at “the land of the free.” You’re not free, if you let a government agency contravene your own Fourth Amendment daily. Which is what TSA does.
As long as you grope my balls, in my home country, as a condition of going to your country, I’m … going to shut up for now. I have too much to say, and it may not be appropriate for this forum, so I will shut up.
I totally get that. I have been given gift certificates for massage and never used them. Being touched by a stranger is something I would not volunteer for. But crying? Both my parents are gone, but I never actually cried, as death is inevitable. Maybe it’s me.
