[81attendees] Flying via the US

[<[e-mail]>]

There's an important warning related to Mary's message - most flights between the US and Canada arrive and depart US airports as if they were domestic flights to/from US cities (e.g., in Boston, most flights to/from Canada do not use the International Terminal [E]).

Unless your airline explicitly tells you otherwise, when connecting in a US airport between an international flight and a flight to/from Canada, entering the US is required.  After entering the US from an international flight, expect a security check (take off shoes, etc.) in order to get to the connecting flight, which may use the same security area as passengers departing from that city, depending on the airport (allow time for this).  In the reverse direction, entering the US usually occurs in the Canadian airport from which the flight to the US departs, which avoids the security check for connecting flights on arrival in the US, but Quebec City is an exception, as there is apparently no US preclearance facility in the Quebec City airport:

http://www.cbp.gov/xp/cgov/toolbox/contacts/preclear_locations.xml

FYI,
--David
----------------------------------------------------
David L. Black, Distinguished Engineer
EMC Corporation, 176 South St., Hopkinton, MA  01748
[phone]             FAX: [phone]
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From: [e-mail] [mailto:[e-mail]] On Behalf Of Mary Barnes
Sent: Wednesday, July 06, 2011 12:19 PM
To: John R. Levine
Cc: [e-mail]
Subject: Re: [81attendees] Ways to Quebec City from Toronto by ways other than Airlines

I would not recommend anyone (even if you have a VISA) to try to connect through the US as that puts you into the hands (figuratively and literally) of the TSA.

I also did not find that there is a lot of air service directly to QC from the US when I was booking my flight (from Dallas) and per the host website, there are only 5 cities in the US that offer flights directly to QC:
http://ietf81.ca/?page_id=10
That only includes two of the airports in the US out of the top 10 airports with the highest passenger traffic (and 4 out of the top 36).

I personally am flying direct to Montreal and then renting a car for the day to/from QC - the cost is only slightly higher AND I spend a lot less time getting there.  More importantly I don't have to deal with multiple airlines which are not partners and thus they have no responsibility nor are services provided in the case of delays, missed connections, luggage transfers etc.  All of those things are enough of a pain with a single airline (and their partners) when you have to take multiple hops to get somewhere.

Regards,
Mary Barnes

On Wed, Jul 6, 2011 at 9:08 AM, John R. Levine <[e-mail]<mailto:[e-mail]>> wrote:

There is quite a lot of air service to Quebec via cities in the US, although I realize this can be a problem if you don't already have a US visa.

Regards,
John Levine, [e-mail]<mailto:[e-mail]>, Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for Dummies",
Please consider the environment before reading this e-mail. http://jl.ly
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