News: Passengers without USA Visa cannot transit flights in USA

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News: Passengers without USA Visa cannot transit flights in USA
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Thread Starter: lucasiu
Started: 08-09-2003 3:16 AM
Replies: 0

Avitop Forums » Civil Aviation » General Aviation » News: Passengers without USA Visa cannot transit flights in USA

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lucasiu

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News: Passengers without USA Visa cannot transit flights in USA

http://www.aberdeennews.com/mld/aberdeennews/news/nation/6458171.htm

At issue is a U.S. Department of Homeland Security directive issued Saturday that suspends two programs - Transit Without Visa and International-to-International - that allowed foreigners to make connections at U.S. airports without a U.S. visa. About 615,000 travelers used the programs last year, most from Latin America.

Authorities suspended the programs for an initial 60 days after recent intelligence reports suggested potential terrorist threats at U.S. airports in the East Coast.

The measure won't affect citizens of 27 countries, mostly rich nations in Europe, who don't need a visa to enter the United States anyway. Nor does it affect those travelers from developing nations who already have U.S. visas, including many top executives from South and Central America who frequent the United States on business.

But this serverly affects the people travelling between Latin America and Asia ocassionally, as the fare of USA visa is as high as US$100.

This shows the problems in airport design of USA international airports, which the area for international flight transfer is not separated from that of domestic flights, thus visas are needed on transit.

Hope Air Canada makes use of this point, and operate more flights between Asia and Canada, as well as flights between Canada and Latin America, so passengers can fly between Asia and Latin America without visas of USA or Canada. (Since the international airports of Candad have international flight transfer area separated from that of domestic flights, like that in most places of the world.)

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