Reply To: Houston flight options

[BA Flyer IHG Stayer]

BBbetter wrote:

On a related note, is there any reason smaller airports like MAN or LGW cannot offer pre-clearance? Is it because government wants to protect LHR (where there is no space) or due to LHR lobbying?

Firstly it costs as the US Government and Congress insists that any new pre clearance facilities are fully funded by the airport as are any extra cost of salary and e.g. housing allowances for CBP officers deployed to pre clearance airports. So it’s not cheap.

Then there is the whole legal issue of having foreign officials on your soil but there is a precident for that with French immigration oficers being deployed at e.g. St Pancras and Dover.

MAN left shell space in its recent development for a pre clearance facility.

But it also just takes an age. The CBP announced BRU would get pre clearance in September 2020 yet almost 4 years on … ARN was announced long befor that and still nada

EDI applied years ago as well.

I’m sure LHR would love it but as you say there is no space and it would need to be a facility easily accessible by all airlines that fly to the US. And given the number of connections involved to the US there is the whole MCT issue to consider.

And finally given the vast improvement in US immigration processes (not just Global Entry) it’s not as useful as it used to be for a lot of people.