Hacker News Reader

Comment by WildUtah | Hacker News Reader

Canada, Ireland, and Abu Dhabi do US immigration at their own airports before you leave. I've never heard of any other pair of countries with any similar arrangements.

Indeed Canada, Ireland, and Abu Dhabi wait until you arrive there from the USA to do their own immigration so it only goes one way.

View on HN

US preclearance exists in certain airports in Canada, Ireland, Bermuda, the Bahamas, Aruba, and the UAE.

The US-Canada agreement is the oldest one, largely due to the amount of cross-border air travel, and Canada has the right under the agreement to operate preclearance stations for the Canadian border inside US airports, but has never chosen to do so.

I've learned that, when coming to the US from Europe, if I can't get a direct flight, I prefer my change to be in Canada. This way, I can pass immigration on the Canadian airport, while I'm idling between flights anyway. Also, the one time I did it, there was almost no queue (in Toronto).

When I had a connection in Canada, my incoming flight was delayed, the lines were long and I was at risk of missing my connection, so I made the opposite conclusion.

France and UK when traveling by train.

Finland to Russia on train, the Russian Border security checks you while the train is still in Finland, speeding 200km/h towards Russia. And vice versa when going in the other direction.

Saves a lot of time and hassle.

That's awesome. Did the crossing a couple of decades ago and that was also the case, though not when 'speeding' but when changing engine at the border, and then it didn't go 200km/h at any point, and that's probably a good thing as there were man-sized gaps between left and right of the iron floating bridge connectors between carriages, but same principle.

Every long distance international train ride I've done has involved handing the conductor your passport if on a sleeper (typically overnight crossing), or someone coming round to check if it's not a sleeper.

Also from Switzerland to France, if departing from Geneva. As well as Geneva airport having a dedicated section for flying to france.

The same practice was recently implemented for a train from Ukraine to Poland.

Same when travelling by ferry across the Channel.

And ferry.

Not sure if Abu Dhabi still does it. It has, however, been an unmitigated disaster:

http://onemileatatime.boardingarea.com/2014/09/07/etihads-ab...

In case anyone is looking for some alt-anecdata on that: I was surprised to see that article, because I've been through that facility 4 times and every time has been excellent and fast (I'd even say faster than my experience in Dublin, though that was fine too). I much prefer it than having to do it after landing after 30 hours of flying... ymmv i guess

Maybe you where flying at different times? I can imagine that when they fill up four wide bodies within a couple of hours that this can be problematic.

What sounds really, really annoying is that there are no facilities whatsoever (save for a coffee kiosk) and that you can't even sit down until the gate opens.

Personally, I wouldn't know since I never flew via Abu Dhabi (let alone to the US).

Etihad are still advertising it on their flights. The entire airport is a bit of a disaster to be honest.

Sweden just got a deal for the same arrangement with the US.

That's crazy dangerous considering the recent terrorist incidents

Yeah, Tim Pool just finished his visit to Sweden. He barely made it out alive

(he ate too much dangerously delicious lasagna when in Malmo)

Haha! Can not tell if serious... :-/

Don't worry. Sweden will rebuild. #SwedenIncident

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10028682137

And Manchester will be the first UK airport with preclearance.

Driving the Channel tunnel between UK and France, they each have "immigration" on the opposite sides. You drive through the French passport control before you get into the tunnel to leave the UK.

Driving????

There's a tunnel that goes under the channel connecting the two countries.

It's a train tunnel though, so you cannot technically drive a car there.

Well you drive onto the train and you stay in your car and drive out. So yeah, you do drive a car there, the ground beneath you changes but you haven't really stopped driving.

Israel in Greece

And in Geneva airport

Exiting Germany to fly to UK we do get checked. UK does not do an exit check when flying back the other way.

Ya, sure it's one way. I'm not sure how my comment was interpreted as meaning anything else.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com