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Comment by Tloewald | Hacker News Reader

In the 60s and 70s every bag was searched by hand in front of you on international flights. We're actually no worse off than those days.

In the late 90s you could roll up to the airport 15 minutes before an international flight, walk to the plane hardly breaking stride for customs, fly to your destination, and walk out to the taxies -- again hardly breaking stride for customs.

Then there was 9/11.

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You don't go through customs at all for an outbound flight. If you're a non-citizen/permanent resident, you just get an immigration officer to stamp your passport.

If you're leaving the US, things probably aren't much more involved at the destination. It's when you come back that you have to deal with pissy immigration and customs officers.

If you're flying from a Canadian airport to the US (from Ottawa or Toronto at least) you actually clear US customs while still in Canada. This is actually very convenient as before they started this clearing customs in the US would involve a long line if many fights were arriving at the same time.

>> (from Ottawa or Toronto at least)

FWIW, Calgary is this way as well.

You generally need to convince the airline you're allowed into the destination country, because if you're stopped at the border, they're responsible for you.

In many -- probably most -- countries there is some kind of outgoing border control for any international flight -- not necessarily "customs" but something similar. (I was actually detained briefly at customs leaving Sydney for Japan in the 90s. Never found out why.)

That's not immigration though. In the majority of cases, that's done automatically in the background by cross-referencing your itinerary and citizenship against TIMATIC. The passenger never does anything.

Didn't universal bag searches only start in 1973 in the aftermath of D.B. Cooper and all his copycats?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D._B._Cooper#Airport_security

I was a little young to comment on air travel before 1974 from personal experience, but I do recall international travel by ship in 1970 and, again, border controls were quite tight.

...which, of course, involved no international flights.

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