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Comment by wycx | Hacker News Reader

A non-stop flight means you only have to deal with CBP or TSA once, at the end of the flight. If you fly SYD-LAX-JFK or SYD-DFW-JFK you have to get off the plane at LAX or DFW, go through immigration and customs, go to the domestic terminal, go though TSA security and hope you have not missed your domestic connection.

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Most major international transfer airports (e.g. Narita, Hong Kong, Schiphol, Changi, even Moscow) have nice air side connections that don't require entering immigration. Ya, they'll still security screen you, but it is much quicker than when initially broadening.

America is unique in requiring all passengers to go through immigration, but in that case they are usually going somewhere else in America anyways so it would be a port of entry. Sucks if you are transferring in Miami to go to South America, however.

Cheap flights from Eastern Canada to Asia often stop in the US, which is a huge pain.

On the other hand, a cheap flight from the USA to Asia can have an easy airside transfer in Canada.

Perhaps next time I want to visit Canada I'll go

Melbourne -> Seoul -> Mexico City -> Montreal

The previous time it was Melbourne -> LA -> Newark -> Montreal, flying home Vancouver -> LA -> Brisbane -> Melbourne.

You can add doha to that list, they often do security screens but not always... An hour has been hurried/comfortable connection time multiple times, even made 50 minutes a few times. YMMV.

And China is interesting in the other direction: certain cities in China allow multi-day "transit" without a Chinese visa, so long as your origin and eventual destination are two different countries. So, for example, you can fly into Shanghai from the US, spend a couple days there, then board a plane to Tokyo, and China considers it to be one long "transit" not requiring a visa.

Extended stay transfer visas on arrival are not uncommon. Moscow has this, as does Hong Kong for mainland citizens without entrance permits. So if you fly to Europe from Asia via Moscow and have an extended transfer Moscow, you can get a visa on arrival to see the city for a day or two, or if you are mainland Chinese and fly to Bali via Hong Kong, you can have a one day layover and see Hong Kong even without a Hong Kong visit permission.

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