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Saudi media reports US CBP pre-clearance facilities will be set up in Riyadh and Jeddah airports.

The facilities would allow passengers to undertake all immigration, customs and agriculture inspections prior to their departure, and upon reaching the US, passengers will be treated as domestic arrivals.

Pre-clearance facility for US at Saudi airports soon
http://saudigazette.com.sa/saudi-arabia ... orts-soon/

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Obviously move is part of DHS 2014 plan to expand pre-clearance to atleast 10 additional countries by 2020.

Jaw hits floor. I know Saudi is an ally, but this shocks me. It wasn't in my too ten!


Please tell me I'm not the only one.

Lightsaber

Can't wait to hear DL's reaction, maybe they'll bring up 9/11 again

Why not London!? Or Tokyo!? Or Paris!? Or Frankfurt!? Someplace that actually has more than 4 flights a day to the US!?

TWA772LR wrote:

Why not London!? Or Tokyo!? Or Paris!? Or Frankfurt!? Someplace that actually has more than 4 flights a day to the US!?

Of your list both London LHR and Tokyo NRT were on the DHS list of airports they would enter talks with.

Obviously such agreements take time to hash out with host governments and airport facilities need to be rebuilt. Next ones in the pipeline are Punta Cana scheduled to open in May 2017, and then I suspect Stockholm Arlanda might be next who will be reconfiguring a pier for US flights in 2017.

I have serious issues with this plan. Unfortunately, my opinion spills over into an area inappropriate for this forum. I think y'all know why.

TWA772LR wrote:

Why not London!? Or Tokyo!? Or Paris!? Or Frankfurt!? Someplace that actually has more than 4 flights a day to the US!?

I don't think that Paris or Frankfurt are interested. For Heathrow, it will require too many costly changes to the airport terminals with either multiple US preclearance facility to all 4 terminals or a massive facility in a single terminal. In addition, it will not facilitate transfers to US flights as connecting passengers will have to be there at least 3 hours before the US-bound flights. Not practical for passengers and duty free shopping.

The US now requires all new foreign airports to pay for the salaries of US CBP officers. Not sure that any of these airports, even Tokyo airports, are willing to do that. And I am sure that many European politicians would certainly not like the idea as well.

There are only 2 airports in Europe that have expressed an interest: Manchester and Stockholm. The preclearance facility should open next year in Stockholm. In Manchester, they plan to add a preclearance facility once its renovations are completed by 2023.

DeSpringbokke wrote:

I have serious issues with this plan. Unfortunately, my opinion spills over into an area inappropriate for this forum. I think y'all know why.

I agree. This is asinine.

Let's focus on places that are much more critical to our economy..and oh maybe...well nevermind.

PSU.DTW.SCE wrote:

DeSpringbokke wrote:

I have serious issues with this plan. Unfortunately, my opinion spills over into an area inappropriate for this forum. I think y'all know why.

I agree. This is asinine.

Let's focus on places that are much more critical to our economy..and oh maybe...well nevermind.

Last thing I'll say on this topic. Some contractor is going to do very well indeed on building these facilities. Follow the money.

LAXintl wrote:

TWA772LR wrote:

Why not London!? Or Tokyo!? Or Paris!? Or Frankfurt!? Someplace that actually has more than 4 flights a day to the US!?

Of your list both London LHR and Tokyo NRT were on the DHS list of airports they would enter talks with.

Obviously such agreements take time to hash out with host governments and airport facilities need to be rebuilt. Next ones in the pipeline are Punta Cana scheduled to open in May 2017, and then I suspect Stockholm Arlanda might be next who will be reconfiguring a pier for US flights in 2017.

Punta Cana or Saudi Arabia...which duty station will be more popular? LOL.

How many flights a day are there from Jeddah & Riyadh to the US? I can't imagine there's that many flights.

People fail to realize that this is not about providing convenience to pax. This is about preventing undesirables from entering the US and stopping them as far away from the US as possible.

Coal wrote:

People fail to realize that this is not about providing convenience to pax. This is about preventing undesirables from entering the US and stopping them as far away from the US as possible.

Bingo! DHS' objective is to identify the threat at the point of origin before the person gets on the aircraft and ends up on US soil.

DeSpringbokke wrote:

PSU.DTW.SCE wrote:

DeSpringbokke wrote:

Last thing I'll say on this topic. Some contractor is going to do very well indeed on building these facilities. Follow the money.

Maybe the contractor in question is the one who lost his brother in Pakistan a few years ago.

How can this possibly be justified? There are what, 2-3 daily fights to the US from each airport? I realize this is purely anecdotal, but of the dozens and dozens of SV 77W flights I've seen departing IAD in just the past few years, I'm not sure I've ever seen a flight that appears to come near capacity. Even AUH has more US bound traffic, and that Preclearance placement decision didn't make any sense to me either.

If Saudia Arabia will pay for it, CBP will staff it. LHR, FRA, CDG, AMS seem logical, but connections and terminal layouts make it close to impossible.

CUN would make sense, but US based agents in Mexico (with guns) ain't gonna happen.

DeSpringbokke wrote:

I have serious issues with this plan. Unfortunately, my opinion spills over into an area inappropriate for this forum. I think y'all know why.

I'm right there with you brother.... What a complete cluster******

I guess Fed-zilla has forgotten about 9-11

globalcabotage wrote:

If Saudia Arabia will pay for it, CBP will staff it. LHR, FRA, CDG, AMS seem logical, but connections and terminal layouts make it close to impossible.

CUN would make sense, but US based agents in Mexico (with guns) ain't gonna happen.

Which contractor in Saudia Arabia will be getting paid for this? There's a certain family in Saudia Arabia well known for construction that has a serious knack with this country. I don't need to say anything further. This is worse than the Dubai ports deal. Hopefully the political pressure will shelve this. I know one candidate for President would oppose this 110%.

thegoldenargosy wrote:

How many flights a day are there from Jeddah & Riyadh to the US? I can't imagine there's that many flights.

JFK, LAX, and IAD.

IIRC, JFK is the only one with more than daily.

Why not Pre-clearance at DXB? The passenger volume from EK certainly justifies it

Coal wrote:

People fail to realize that this is not about providing convenience to pax. This is about preventing undesirables from entering the US and stopping them as far away from the US as possible.

If this is truly the aim, wouldn't that only make sense if all airports with US-bound flights would have it? Surely someone with bad intentions who'd somehow benefit by being checked in the US rather than at an US outpost could simply transfer at an airport without pre-clearance if it's only at select airports.

Jetty wrote:

Coal wrote:

People fail to realize that this is not about providing convenience to pax. This is about preventing undesirables from entering the US and stopping them as far away from the US as possible.

If this is truly the aim, wouldn't that only make sense if all airports with US-bound flights would have it? Surely someone with bad intentions who'd somehow benefit by being checked in the US rather than at an US outpost could simply transfer at an airport without pre-clearance if it's only at select airports.

Undesirables do not have all bad intentions. DHS is much more concerned about immigration related cases.

globalcabotage wrote:

If Saudia Arabia will pay for it, CBP will staff it. LHR, FRA, CDG, AMS seem logical, but connections and terminal layouts make it close to impossible.

CUN would make sense, but US based agents in Mexico (with guns) ain't gonna happen.

Do US immigration or customs agents in non US airports carry a gun? because I never expected them to. But either way CBP could hire local private security to do the policing.

The new Mexico city airport under construction is going to have an entire floor dedicated to pre-clearance facilities (the 3rd floor which is roughly the size of the regular security checkpoint on the 4th floor).

Personally, I don't see much sense in MEX having pre-clearance as pretty much all viable US destinations already are international airports (nobody expects flights to LGA from MEX) and the point of building the new airport is to open new international routes to avoid taking connecting flights in US airports.

Anyway, it's still far from certain that MEX would ever get pre-clearance so I guess they can adapt the 3rd floor as a hotel or duty free shop.

TWA772LR wrote:

Why not London!? Or Tokyo!? Or Paris!? Or Frankfurt!? Someplace that actually has more than 4 flights a day to the US!?

yeah , i too agree with your statement.

Someone at CBP is smoking a very strong dope!

lightsaber wrote:

Jaw hits floor. I know Saudi is an ally, but this shocks me. It wasn't in my too ten!


Please tell me I'm not the only one.

Lightsaber

You're not! This is an absolute shocker!

Ro

Jetty wrote:

Coal wrote:

If this is truly the aim, wouldn't that only make sense if all airports with US-bound flights would have it? Surely someone with bad intentions who'd somehow benefit by being checked in the US rather than at an US outpost could simply transfer at an airport without pre-clearance if it's only at select airports.

Riiiight, because all countries are more than happy to have armed CBP people on their territory

Coal wrote:

People fail to realize that this is not about providing convenience to pax. This is about preventing undesirables from entering the US and stopping them as far away from the US as possible.

Maybe for this specific instance, but it's rather difficult to make the case for that being a primary objective of pre-clearance in general.

Coal wrote:

Jetty wrote:

Coal wrote:

If this is truly the aim, wouldn't that only make sense if all airports with US-bound flights would have it? Surely someone with bad intentions who'd somehow benefit by being checked in the US rather than at an US outpost could simply transfer at an airport without pre-clearance if it's only at select airports.

Riiiight, because all countries are more than happy to have armed CBP people on their territory

That's (obviously) not what I ment to suggest, it rather made me question the pre-clearence as security measure at all.

In Manchester, they plan to add a preclearance facility once its renovations are completed by 2023.

The Manchester facility is aiming for a 2019 opening, as it only needs one of the piers to be constructed in order to open, and one of the piers, all things going well, should have a late 2019 opening. Announcement on the US pre clearance in MAN due around January time by all accounts.

Well that is surprising.

US military presence in Saudi Arabia ("the holy kingdom") has always been controversial (hence why it is kept "undercovered" contrary to US presence in Bahrain, Qatar or the UAE).

Also the number of Saudi-US flights is quite limited, with only Saudia currently flying.

SV has never had 2 daily flights to the Kingdom from JFK. Usually JFK/IAD have alternating daily flights to either JED or RUH. JFK has never had two flights on any given day. If this has changed it's news to me. SV has stated LAX some time ago.

I googled the story. There is very little additional information about this, but it looks to be true.

It is kind of a head scratcher.

SV has served the USA nonstop forever with just a few flights. Preclearance is not something I have a lot of knowledge of honestly. I experienced it in DUB one year and AUA another.

A lot of people don't even use SV anyway, they use European carriers, EK, EY, and QR.

The "real" reason for this is not known. But I agree with someone above, keep politics out of this and stick to the topic.

TWA772LR wrote:

Why not London!? Or Tokyo!? Or Paris!? Or Frankfurt!? Someplace that actually has more than 4 flights a day to the US!?

I have to believe it is up to the airports / host nation, but I agree. I would love this in Hong Kong, and we have greater than 4 flights a day:

BOS 1
NYC 4
EWR 2
DFW 1
ORD 2
SFO 3
SEA 1
LAX 5

I contend that in HK, they could dedicate gates 1-4 to US flights with access points to open up gates 1-2 for non-US flights. Similar to what YVR does. Move all US check-ins to T2 there's plenty of room to add pre-clearance, customs, and immigration there.

Maybe this is agreed to on behalf of the gifts to the Clinton Foundation.

They've been talking about this in JED for at least a year. They've allocated some gates in the swing area (zone in the middle of the double Y that can be re-purposed for domestic or international depending on demand) of the new terminal for US preclearance.

You can make out the zone as it has glass barriers around the gates: https://youtu.be/XHcyvgCTBc0?t=179

I don't know what the surprise is. Pre-clearance makes most sense where the security threats are the greatest, not in Western Europe or Japan or whatever. This program has absolutely nothing to do with passenger convenience. Most European airports have correctly concluded that it is an expensive mess which is not worth the bother. MAN and ARN seem to believe that there is some competitive edge to be had with this but I very much doubt that it will be worth the expense.

hvusslax wrote:

I don't know what the surprise is. Pre-clearance makes most sense where the security threats are the greatest, not in Western Europe or Japan or whatever. This program has absolutely nothing to do with passenger convenience. Most European airports have correctly concluded that it is an expensive mess which is not worth the bother. MAN and ARN seem to believe that there is some competitive edge to be had with this but I very much doubt that it will be worth the expense.

In the case of Saudi Arabia is surprising given the recent history:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_St ... udi_Arabia

I know CBP are not military personnel, however they are US government workers working in a Saudi infrastructure on Saudi soil.

No big deal actually. There's no controversy about it in Saudi. The only thing that might be an issue is subsidising American security at a time of austerity at home.

Coal and hvusslax are right - the purpose of the pre clearance is to push the effective US border as far away from the actual US border as possible. It's much, much easier to not let someone on a plane and leave them in XYZ than it is to have them get on the plane, arrive in the US and then have to be turned around or more rather there be some legal impediment to turning them around (I'm thinking mainly asylum claims but there are others at play too).

So yes whilst I agree it would be much more convenient for many more people for preclearance to happen at LHR FRA [insert major western European hub] and such a facility would undeniably be welcome by most people - the undeniable intent behind a CBP facility in Riyadh and Jeddah is the externalise the US border. I'm not overly surprised by this move. I (and this is just pure speculation) think that it has probably been brought about by a combination of higher than average 'problems' from people getting off the flights from Riyadh and Jeddah, the willingness of the Saudi government to host CBP facilities and the capacity of the terminals to be modified to have a US precleared area.

Terminal changes should not be a big issue here. There are not a lot of flights and the terminal has space. I have flown from RUH to the USA on SV. There is a large area under the main floor of the terminal for secondary screening for this flight. I might add that flight leaves at a godawful time early in the morning. It will be nice on the Saudi side not having to clear customs in the US.

klwright69 wrote:

Terminal changes should not be a big issue here. There are not a lot of flights and the terminal has space. I have flown from RUH to the USA on SV. There is a large area under the main floor of the terminal for secondary screening for this flight. I might add that flight leaves at a godawful time early in the morning. It will be nice on the Saudi side not having to clear customs in the US.

Terminal changes are more involved than you think. You need to do more than just put some immigration desks. You also have to modify the BHS to route US bound baggage to a US customs facility (which you need to find room for). It's only possible in a place like JED because there's a new terminal being built. Trying to fit it into the south terminal would be a nightmare.

Higher number of positives on arrival at US ports of entry recorded by DHS from any singlecountry gets priority combined with host country's co-operation and ability to fund.

If they want to test that on places with fewer travel first they can probably do that on Guam first. I heard that flight between GUM and rest of America are now counted as International.
If risk is a factor then probably Pakistan.

It makes sense. This way, everyone can be denied entry without wasting everyone's time.

I'm not sure what the objection is. If the host country is willing to pay and is able to modify their facilities to accommodate pre-clearance, why not? It's certainly more convenient for passengers making connections in the USA.

c933103 wrote:

If they want to test that on places with fewer travel first they can probably do that on Guam first. I heard that flight between GUM and rest of America are now counted as International.
If risk is a factor then probably Pakistan.

GUM already has pre-clearance. So does STT and STX. I think those are the only 3 pre-clearance facilities that the US government pays for.

Oh dear. Not sure I am a fan of this idea, either. Is Saudi and Saudia trying to promote themselves as a better connect point between the U.S. and the Middle East?

I am not sure I can really grasp their business strategy.

hvusslax wrote:

I don't know what the surprise is. Pre-clearance makes most sense where the security threats are the greatest, not in Western Europe or Japan or whatever. This program has absolutely nothing to do with passenger convenience.

luftaom wrote:

the purpose of the pre clearance is to push the effective US border as far away from the actual US border as possible.

....which completely explains why the likes of YYZ, YVR, YYC, YUL, BDA, NAS, STT, etc would be pre-clearance, right?.

From DHS perspective, pre-clearance makes sense if the admission rate from a particular region/country is low in the US and if the airport is willing to pay for their staff (as required by the law).
From a medium airport perspective, it makes sense to offer pre-clearance (pay for it) if there are a significant number of flights to the US and if it attract additional passengers. It's perfect option for Saudi airports.
Even though it will be a good thing for the US, US /Canadian citizens or point-to point passenger, it would be a nightmare for large hub such as LHR, CDG or FRA as they'll have to reorganize the passenger flow and the airport terminals. For CDG or FRA, it needs to separate passengers from the Schengen area, the non-Schengen areas and the new US area. Where will they find the space to add a pre-clearance facility ? How many of them should they have in their terminals ? Does it offset the cost ? Airlines would need to reschedule many flights to ensure connecting passengers have sufficient time to clear immigration ahead of their US-bound flights and create new lounges in US areas. Airports would lose significant revenues as connecting passengers to the US would spend less time in duty free areas.
And there are many legal issues to consider such as foreign gun-carrying officers, detention, salary payment to foreign government officers.

atcsundevil wrote:

How can this possibly be justified? There are what, 2-3 daily fights to the US from each airport? I realize this is purely anecdotal, but of the dozens and dozens of SV 77W flights I've seen departing IAD in just the past few years, I'm not sure I've ever seen a flight that appears to come near capacity. Even AUH has more US bound traffic, and that Preclearance placement decision didn't make any sense to me either.

As crazy as it seems, my jaw hit the floor too right now, but a 777 with 300 passengers on board (most of whom will need to be fingerprinted and have their photo taken by an immigration officer) landing at LAX or JFK can really slow down the line. I know this from first hand experience. Just taking out one 77W or A380 out of the mix at a particular hour or peak time really helps CBP in the US and hence, helps passengers who arrive and have to wait in line.

I can't imagine this is going to be a sought after location, so I see some huge incentives to work here!

LAX772LR wrote:

hvusslax wrote:

I don't know what the surprise is. Pre-clearance makes most sense where the security threats are the greatest, not in Western Europe or Japan or whatever. This program has absolutely nothing to do with passenger convenience.

luftaom wrote:

the purpose of the pre clearance is to push the effective US border as far away from the actual US border as possible.

....which completely explains why the likes of YYZ, YVR, YYC, YUL, BDA, NAS, STT, etc would be pre-clearance, right?.

Most of these agreements date back to the 20th century. The modern conception of it was in 1974 and the late 1990s. It was a different time back then. Today, it is a whole new priority. Many people of interest transit LHR, AMS, CDG, FRA, etc. Just look at the radical immigration change in Europe and you can see the reasoning behind it.