I was flying from Canada back to the US yesterday and went through the usual passport-checking and customs stuff.
When I got to the gate, the waiting area was cordoned off and a security officer individually checked our passports and boarding pass before we were allowed to be seated. There were about five security personnel (plus the regular airline attendants in the area).
The flight from the adjacent gate was going to Las Vegas and had none of this in place.
Any idea why this might have been happening? The only thing I can think of is that I was headed to DC.
They have a setup like that in the airport in Montreal. If you’re flying into Reagan National, you have to go through an extra security step that includes a bag search and a glassed-in waiting area for the flight. If you leave the area to use the bathroom, you have to be re-searched. Since flying into DCA includes flying by a bunch of important stuff, they’re extra careful.
At least. this was the case a couple of years ago. Not sure if it’s still in place.
I think that they were clearing you through US Customs before leaving Canada. That allows them to fly you into the domestic terminal in the US airport. Most likely passengers on the Las Vegas flight you saw would have to fly into an international terminal and be cleared through customs after arriving.
No, Cerowyn and Antigen have it right. This was special, extra security for DC flights. Everybody in this area, including the Las Vegas flight, was already in the US Customs cleared area. Flights from Canada do not have to clear customs when arriving in Las Vegas.
That’s not the way that customs works in Toronto Pearson, so you’ve either not been there or don’t recall it. All US flights out of that airport clear US customs before you ever get back to the gates. It doesn’t matter which American city is your destination.
Why did they decide to let people clear customs in Toronto? The main reason I can think of is it lets flights go to more US cities where they don’t have customs staff.
Yes, that’s the main reason. I almost always fly to LGA (which doesn’t have US Customs) when I go to New York, for instance. There are a huge number of flights between Canada and the U.S.; Air Canada has 11 daily direct flights from Toronto to LaGuardia, and seven direct flights from Montreal, for instance.
When you clear customs are you legally in the US even though you are still in Toronto? I thought it was funny the sign said “Welcome to the USA” when I am sitting in the Toronto airport.
No, the area beyond US Customs is not “legally” the United States, even though still being in Pearson Airport. I have seen Peel Regional Police (the city cops for the municipality that Pearson is in) in there alongside US Customs agents manhandling someone (I have no idea what it was about, though). Technically the US BCBP procedure at foreign airports is “preclearance,” a term I suspect is chosen to allude to the fact that it is clearance achieved before reaching the U.S.
Just to be clear – it’s not just Toronto, it’s all the major Canadian airports (Montreal, Ottawa, Calgary, and Vancouver for sure, plus some others probably).
Also some Carribean airports I think, and Ireland as well.
There are several advantages: This way there can be flights from Canadian cities into smaller American cities that couldn’t justifiy having customs services themselves. Also, it allows easier connections to American cities. Once you arrive at an American hub you are treated as if you arrived on a domestic flight.
How hard is to to justify customs service? The ferry I mentioned in another post has customs/immigration control, despite the fact that two good bridges and a tunnel are each within an hour from the ferry (i.e., no real justification for the ferry).
On the company plane we used to clear customs at some podunk El Paso airport all the time. We’d get off the plane, line up in front of a little office, and then stand on the tarmack waiting for the plane to be refueled and lunch to arrive. This was for a good sized F-100 with 50+ people on board.
The Raleigh-Durham airport has customs just for 1 daily flight from London. I don’t know if the employees are paid full time just for 1 flight or if they have other duties as well or if they are paid part time. I hope they are not paid full time just to greet 1 flight.
I thought I would use that customs area when I came back from Canada but as I mentioned I cleared in Toronto instead.
Perhaps they could just strap everyone down in a straight jacket and knock them out with some drugs when flying to the US.
Seriously, the Department of Homeland Insecurity should just make sure the doors to the cockpit are secure, nobody gets on with a gun and then quit confiscating everybody’s toothpaste.
I would just be interested to know if this secondary check has ever caught anyone trying to do something they shouldn’t.
One day my wife and I were departing from Montreal on the way to somewhere in the US (probably Seattle via Detroit. We had taken a couple of apples to eat on the plane. They had an agricultural inspection and the guy confiscated the apples. I asked if we could consume them on the spot and he acted like we had asked to smuggle dope or something. He quite literally started jumping up and down and said, “You are in US territory now and subject to US law”. Later I found out he was lying. But I imagine that if I called him on it, he could have prevented us from boarding. He was out of his mind.
This leads to another question: what kind of training do US Customs officers who are assigned to Canadian (and other non-US) airports get? I’ve encountered this attitude before in Canadian airports too, and it’s like the US Customs agents don’t realize they’re in another country, where the laws may (and do) differ on the soil where they’re located. It’s educational that in order to effect an arrest (say, in the case of attempted drug smuggling), they have to call on local police, who will prosecute under Canada’s Criminal Code. Which makes sense, because after all, the accused smuggler was on Canadian soil at the time.
It is obvious to any well-informed person that US Customs agents have no powers in preclearance areas on non-US territory beyond denying a person entrance to the US, but they act as if they do. It would be one thing if these US Customs agents were physically located in the US, but they’re not. What kind of international/diplomatic training do these US Customs agents located outside the US get?
Yup. LGA and DCA, for example, do not have full-time staffed customs facilities to handle international traffic. The options are to either not serve international destinations, or let the international cities handle customs and increase passenger flow on both ends. If preclearance was not an option, you wouldn’t be able to fly into DCA or LGA from Canada.
AUA, BDA, NAS, and FPO all enjoy US Customs preclearance.
Right now, Ireland does not preclear arrivals into the US; immigration checks are done, but customs is still handled on the US side. A week from today, SNN will have full preclearance facilities; DUB should follow shortly thereafter.