Quoting rfields5421 (Reply 11): Asia to Central/ South America might be possible - but the routes are too thin to justify the expense.

And those flights to Central and northern South America might likely be routed via ANC, as ANC is the only U.S. airport right now which allows foreigners who need them to transit without a U.S. Visa.
ANC does have an in-transit area outside U.S. immigration/customs control.
If it's being used now, that's another question.

Quoting Maverick623 (Reply 33): Not to be rude or demean the deaths of 3000 innocent people, but nearly 6 times that many people died from drunk driving crashes that year. Just some perspective.

And we spend a lot of money and effort trying to stop those too.

But the response was related to the comment about "paranoia" being responsible for the lack of sterile international terminals. That's far from the reason.

Rebuilding the airports to accommodate the very small demand for transit would inconvenience the US and public and those who are visiting the US. It would make connections domestically to international much longer, REQUIRING terminal changes or segregation.

How exactly would one redesign LAX? Force AA, UA, DL to operate international flights from TBIT? Force all passengers connecting in from domestic flights to then transfer to TBIT? All so a few transit passengers that day don't have to clear immigration/secure a visa?

That's not a tradeoff I would advocate. Our system works for us and for those actually visiting the US. If the USA were well located like England or Japan, Dubai or Hong Kong, a waypoint between massive populations trying to get from one part of the world to the other, it might make sense. But most people who transit through a USA airport are doing so to get to/from somewhere else in the USA.

And while it might be an option to use a US city as a gateway, it's often just an alternative to another route, or a non-stop route. High yield pax wouldn't choose that routing over a non-stop. So why change everything to chase low-yield?

Quoting ikramerica (Reply 36): If the USA were well located like England or Japan, Dubai or Hong Kong, a waypoint between massive populations trying to get from one part of the world to the other, it might make sense

The US is right in the middle of the 600 million Latin Americans and the 1,4 billion Chinese, which are two of the fastest middle class growing áreas in the world, which basically means where you find the greatest potential growth in the near future for passengers. Just look at the growth of airports of airports in both áreas and you will see how wrong your appreciation is.

Quoting Hkg212 (Reply 6): DFW already has ITI facilities in Terminal D, which are not being used. At least it is the only airport in the US (to my knowledge) that allows direct ITI baggage transfer, which is a big advantage and why I prefer DFW over any other airport for my trips to Latin America.

Houston has had international-to-international direct bag transfers for a long time now, and for a few years has had a customs "one stop" for people with that ITI, or with carry on bags only allowing them to skip the customs part of CBP.

IIRC Chicago is working something similar.

One still must clear TSA but it does remove one step of the two step CBP process and it is nice to not have to lug bags and recheck. A good friend just used it again two weeks ago LHR-IAH-BZE on UA and loved it.

Quoting BOGOTA (Reply 37): The US is right in the middle of the 600 million Latin Americans and the 1,4 billion Chinese, which are two of the fastest middle class growing áreas in the world, which basically means where you find the greatest potential growth in the near future for passengers. Just look at the growth of airports of airports in both áreas and you will see how wrong your appreciation is.

How many passengers per day transit between South America and Asia via the United States? Is it enough to build facilities to specially accommodate them? How about MEX? Do they have transit facilities?

[Edited 2014-04-22 20:03:57]

Quoting DDR (Reply 30):

I hate to break this to you, but Canada, France, the UK, Russia, China, Mexico, Turkey, Brazil, New Zealand, et al. have experienced acts of air terrorism, many of them fatal. And many of those countries still have the same airside transiting that we're discussing in this thread. And the events of 9/11 were not "because" the US wanted air travel to be easy - it was the result of decades of foreign policy and other political aspects that aren't appropriate for discussion here. The terrorists didn't say "geewizz, we should totally punish America for making it easy to get around."

The US government then said some stuff about not changing because then the terrorists would win, then in the next breath put up a big ol' white flag and bent over.

Quoting ikramerica (Reply 36): How exactly would one redesign LAX? Force AA, UA, DL to operate international flights from TBIT? Force all passengers connecting in from domestic flights to then transfer to TBIT? All so a few transit passengers that day don't have to clear immigration/secure a visa?

LAX would require much more work than some airports. I would also like to mention YYZ, only SOME airlines are able to use the in-transit facilities there. In YYZ if you are connecting AC/AA or BA etc you have to clear Canada customs. If you are connecting Star Alliance to Star alliance, you don't.

For example, DFW could seal one terminal for ITI, and only OneWorld airlines could use it... Or ORD T5 for star connections or oneworld. ATL could seal Terminal F for Skyteam and have a border crossing in the train tunnel. EWR could seal C-3 for ITI, or use B-3 like they currently do for some international arrivals (could include all Star).

For LAX, you technically COULD create 2 or 3 ITI areas, in T6 or 7 for Star, T5 (very unlikely given connections available for DL) or part of T4 (with a sealed connection to TBIT).

While I agree the costs would be huge, I would think it would open more possibilities for airlines to either offer more service because they can take more advantage of connections, or the airlines could use current routes are generate more revenue from connections previously handed over to other carriers.

Quoting DDR (Reply 30): Sorry you feel that way but you are wrong. The USA is a constant target for terrorists and too bad if you have to be inconvenienced. People like to bash the USA and their security issues but lets not forget over 3,000 people were killed in a terrorist attack in the US because the government wanted to make it easy to travel and fly in the country. That has changed and it will not go back.

See, that's what I mean by paranoia. Mindlessly bellowing something about the US being a terrorist target justifying all kinds of things without even understanding what has been said or written or reflecting whether these measures make sense.

1) You say that I am "wrong". I am wrong about what? About AF routing the flights from Paris to Tahiti through the LAX? Check the timetable's, they do
2) Of course the US is a constant target for terrorists, I do not deny that. But so is the UK (you surely heard about all the terrorist attacks that have happened there, for instance London Underground), and so is France (you may know that France is in a war deploying its ground troops in Africa to fight Islamist terrorists; that makes them quite unliked in those circles). Nevertheless neither LHR nor CDG require intl-intl transfer pax to go through UK or French immigration. So what is different in the US?
3) How does security improve by making people that want to fly from Paris to Papeete on one flight number (possibly even one and the same plane) go through US immigration? US immigration checks whether someone can enter the US. But these transfer passengers do not want to enter the US, so why check whether they are allowed to immigrate? It doesn't make any sense. If the goal is to filter out people who could hijack an airliner or explode their socks on board: that is done on the ground in Paris, where people with explosives or weapons or knives are filtered out by security. If the goal is to prevent people from committing a terrorist attack on the ground in the US then this is paranoid, because passengers would be confined to the sterile area in the airport (so that's the only place where they *could* in theory commit their attack - not very interesting to blow up a waiting room in an airport) and they would need to do it with tools/material/explosives smuggled through security in Paris. Checking whether people have a visa or a valid ESTA as they reach the US with the intention to fly out two hours later will not change anything to that. It is illogical.

So it's not my opinion, but it's sheer logic of how passenger flows work: checking passports and visas of people on an international-international transfer is pointless, it does not increase security.

Ironic that even other countries with otherwise much stricter visa requirements allow passengers to connect intl-intl. without visa. Heck, you can even connect international in Saudi-Arabia!

Quoting DDR (Reply 30): By all means, skip the US and transit in another country.

For Air France flight AF 76 CDG-PPT, what other intermediate stop would you suggest for that flight? LAX is spot-on on the direct route. So why/ how skip the US?

Quoting DDR (Reply 30): Like others have said, the US doesn't even make sense for a logical transit point to most places. We can fly nonstop from Europe to South America.

Nobody said that it's technically impossible to fly nonstop to South America. The point is that to go from Europe to many places in the Caribbean, Central America and also South America a transfer in Miami opens many more possibilities in terms of coverage and schedules. It is enough to have planes capable of flying a route, it is also a matter of number of frequencies and schedules. As an example, I had to travel frequently to Grand Cayman from Europe. Technically no problem. But there is only one flight from London to GCM, which operates only four times a week. From MIA there are five flights a day, and there are plenty of flights from Europe to MIA, thus opening up many more connection possibilities.

Quoting DDR (Reply 30): The US aviation market is so big that it does not need people to transit in the country. There is plenty of o&d traffic to support several airlines. Compared to a country like Finland, one small to medium size US airport sees more traffic in one day than Helsinki sees in one week. I just do not understand why people always feel the need to bash the U.S., this isn't a political forum.

Your line of argument doesn't work, because it's reverse. "There are no intl-intl passengers transiting the US, so why have the facilities" - the point is how many passengers there would be if the facilities existed.

There is no bashing of the US. It is a purely economic and business question. And you may have noticed that I did not call for all US international gateways to build sterile areas. I do agree that there isn't a compelling business case. But MIA and LAX could make sense.

Quoting Hkg212 (Reply 6): DFW already has ITI facilities in Terminal D, which are not being used. At least it is the only airport in the US (to my knowledge) that allows direct ITI baggage transfer, which is a big advantage and why I prefer DFW over any other airport for my trips to Latin America.

MIA also offers ITI baggage transfer for participating carriers.

Quoting yv773p (Reply 12): The visa issue is not the problem, it is having to clear custom, rechecking your bag and go through security only to leave the US in an hour or so. I think the satellite E at MIA used to have ITI.

The former Concourse A, Concourse E, Concourse E satellite, and Concourse F all have ITI lounges now gathering dust.

Quoting mozart (Reply 43): There is no bashing of the US. It is a purely economic and business question. And you may have noticed that I did not call for all US international gateways to build sterile areas. I do agree that there isn't a compelling business case. But MIA and LAX could make sense.

The economic question to which I don't think we have a good answer is how many transit passengers sterile transit would gain the States, especially if--as is likely--it came along with a requirement for a "light" visa or that the passenger be admissible to the States. We know, I think, that some passengers already transit the States and that those passengers, like a lot of passengers who might transit if it were easier, likely are either from visa waiver countries or hold multi-entry US visas. I'm not convinced that adding sterile transit would result in a rush of passengers. Even today, I'd rather connect in an appropriately-staffed US airport (i.e. not MIA) than make some connections in London or Paris.

One other issue that I don't think has been addressed here is that many of the international connections that exist are to and from Canada and run more smoothly than a typical "in-transit" connection when leaving Canada, with no formalities required at all in the States.

Quoting mozart (Reply 43): LAX could make sense.

LAX wouldn't make sense. Some reasons i can think of
1) It is not a major hub for any one single airline.
2) Very few connecting opportunities NZ, maybe QF connecting to BA flights, KE.
3) Geographically out of the way for Central America to Europe connections.

I think DFW/IAH/ATL make more sense than LAX for this simply because

1) Each of these are fortress hubs for their respective airlines (AA/UA/DL). Each airline has good international flights to Europe as well as Central America.
2) More geographically suited for Europe Connections from Central America. Asia connections are also not that out of the way from these hubs.

But like others have stated, is there a business case? Not sure about this.

Quoting aw70 (Reply 23): Quoting 777ER (Reply 9): NZ use a transit lounge for their NZ1/2 customers between AKL and LHR at LAX. The passengers clear some form of customs first before getting penned into a holding room. What you are describing is at least not done every time. I was on NZ 2 two months ago, and on NZ 1 5 ago. In both cases, no such arrangement was in place.

I've never used the connection lounge at LAX with NZ1/2 services but I do know its ALWAYS used for passengers going to either LHR or AKL

Here is what NZ says on its web-site

Customers on these flights continuing on the same aircraft are no longer required to complete immigration processing in the arrivals hall. Instead, if baggage has been through-checked, customers will be separately processed by US Customs and Border Protection into a dedicated transit lounge where they will remain until re-boarding the aircraft.

Access to the Air New Zealand Lounge is only available to Business Premier customers who will need to complete fast tracked immigration processing and will then be processed through security to the Lounge. Other customers normally entitled to Lounge access including Star Alliance Gold members will remain in a premium transit area, however they are not able to gain access to the Air New Zealand Lounge when transiting in Los Angeles between Auckland and London Heathrow on NZ1 & NZ2.

Elite and Gold customers not flying in Business Premier will be able to access a premium transit area only.

Customers are still required to meet all entry requirements including having a current visa or ESTA where applicable.

Air New Zealand is committed to making travel through Los Angeles a seamless experience for its customers. Later this year the airline will relocate its Los Angeles airport operations to the newly refurbished Tom Bradley International Terminal which features 180,000 square feet of retail space and faster boarding and disembarking systems.
http://www.airnewzealand.co.nz/connecting-at-los-angeles

Quoting 747megatop (Reply 24): How does KE do it on their Brazil to ICN service via LAX ?

I haven't a clue how KE would do it. Isn't there any information on the KE web-site?

Quoting tyler81190 (Thread starter): The other point would be to have better border control with passport checks on entry AND exit, would there be any worth to having this included?

At a true international transit terminal there is no need for either entry or exit control. Passengers arrive and connect without ever passing through the immigration checkpoint of the transit country.

As others have pointed out, there is very limited demand for international connections via the US. The only niche would be Europe-Caribbean, and even there are innumerable nonstop flights bypassing the US. Besides, the vast majority of affluent Europeans, who can afford travel to the Caribbean, would have no visa issues, if they chose to connect via a US hub.

It is not so much the visa issues - it is the time and hassle of going through immigration and customs to never actually really enter the USA. I have waited in line at Miami for over two hours in the past and waits of about an hour are quite common place.