Eleven new airports, located in nine countries, have been selected for possible US Preclearance expansion.
If Preclearance operations are expanded to these airports, passengers would undergo immigration, customs, and agriculture inspection by U.S. CBP before boarding a flight to the United States rather than upon arrival.
Passengers are not subject to further checks as flights arrive as domestic rather than international.
The 11 new airports identified for possible Preclearance are:
- El Dorado International Airport (BOG) in Bogota, Colombia
- Ministro Pistarini International Airport (EZE) in Buenos Aires, Argentina
- Edinburgh Airport (EDI) in Edinburgh, United Kingdom
- Keflavik International Airport (KEF) in Iceland
- Mexico City International Airport (MEX) in Mexico City, Mexico
- Milan-Malpensa Airport (MXP) in Milan, Italy
- Kansai International Airport (KIX) in Osaka, Japan
- Rio de Janeiro-Galeão International Airport (GIG) in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
- Leonardo da Vinci-Fiumicino Airport (FCO) in Rome, Italy
- São Paulo-Guarulhos International Airport (GRU) in Sao Paulo, Brazil
- Princess Juliana International Airport (SXM) in St. Maarten
More than 10 million passengers fly to the United States from these airports each year.
R. Gil Kerlikowske, CBP Commissioner:
“Preclearance has proven to be a valuable tool for CBP, foreign airports, the aviation industry, and most importantly, the traveler, who benefits from shorter wait times.
“CBP precleared more travelers than ever before last year, 18 million, accounting for about 15.3 percent of all commercial air travel to the United States. Not only were those millions of travelers able to immediately leave the airport or directly head to their connecting flight upon landing in the United States, but that’s 18 million fewer people waiting in line for CBP officers to process at the Nation’s busiest airports.”
Airports already in preclearance discussion
Stockholm Arlanda (ARN) may begin preclearance in 2019 as the United States and Sweden have just signed an agreement to start Preclearance operations at that airport. The agreement will be brought into force after the Governments have completed all necessary internal procedures.
The other locations prioritised for preclearance during the first open season in May 2015 included:
- Brussels (BRU), Belgium
- Punta Cana (PUJ), Dominican Republic
- Narita (NRT), Japan
- Amsterdam (AMS), Netherlands
- Oslo (OSL), Norway
- Madrid-Barajas (MAD), Spain
- Istanbul Ataturk (IST), Turkey
- London Heathrow(LHR)
- Manchester (MAN), United Kingdom
Airports currently with US Preclearance
CBP currently has more than 600 law enforcement officers and agriculture specialists stationed at 15 air Preclearance locations in 6 countries:
- Aruba
- Freeport and Nassau, the Bahamas
- Bermuda
- Calgary, Toronto, Edmonton, Halifax, Montreal, Ottawa, Vancouver, and Winnipeg, Canada
- Dublin and Shannon, Ireland
- Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates
CBP and TSA are components of the DHS.
N.B. Image credit: wikipedia
