New airline selling point: We avoid the US!
Posted August 10th, 2007 by Antonia MalchikI can’t put this better than one of my favorite regular bloggers, Patrick Smith of Ask the Pilot. Today’s column addresses a whole hodgepodge of news and issues, including frustration with our sheep-like acceptance of the Transportation Security Administration’s new security alerts and a rundown of the World Airline Awards. But this one takes the cake: airlines are now offering round-the-world routings that make a point of avoiding the US. Patrick puts it better than I can:
‘ “Air New Zealand Offers Round-the-World Routing Avoiding the U.S.” That was a recent headline from U.K.-based Business Traveler magazine. For the past several years, fliers bound from Australia and New Zealand to Europe by way of U.S. stopovers have been raising a ruckus about security policies that require all passengers, even those merely in transit to other countries, to clear U.S. immigration formalities — a process that includes fingerprinting, photographing and baggage rechecking. Air New Zealand has responded with the launch of a service from Auckland to Europe with a hassle-free transfer at Vancouver, British Columbia, eliminating its long-standing Auckland-Los Angeles-London route. Air Canada is following suit with a nonstop Vancouver-Sydney flight, bypassing its traditional layover in Hawaii, which, in the words of the magazine, “will enable global travelers to avoid the United States.” What have we come to?’
Indeed. Quite a number of the letter responses are from frustrated international travelers cheering their new options. In fact, the post reminded that my own mother, who is meant to come to New York to welcome her grandchild in October, has put her foot down at flying through the US. “I simply won’t do it,” she told me. “I won’t fly here. It’s horrible.” (And unsafe, she feels, and intrusive, and soul-draining.) By which she means that she actually prefers to drive 9 hours from Montana to Calgary, Alberta, then fly or take the train to Toronto, take a train to Albany, and have me pick her up for the two-hour ride home. Of course, my mother’s a bit eccentric, but reading the letter in reaction to Smith’s column tells me she’s not alone.
August 11th, 2007 at 12:56 am
Have to say that I, and a lot of people in the UK feel the same and avoid flights that transit the US like the plague. For me there are practical and moral reasons. Morally, coming from the UK, which is one of the closest allies of the US it is rather galling to be treated like a criminal and fingerprinted when transiting your country. We are in greater danger of terrorism because of our support for the US, yet we are still treated with suspicion and discourtesy.
Also, I know of no other country that claims such global jurisdiction in the world. Even transiting Moscow in the eighties was easier and less hassle.
It is also so stunning how BADLY the whole thing is handled in US airports. There doesn’t seem to be a seperate transit passport control. Passengers seem to be treated in the same way as incoming travellers. The queues take ages and the bagggage control system is derisory. And what is it with you guys and queues? Okay the British are noted as being a nation of queuers but trust me - a shared queue should be just that. Eveyone queues in a long line and then goes to the first available booth. It seems in the US (seemingly everywhere - including the Empire State Building) when you get to the front of the main queue there is some two-bit queue-Nazi directing you to little queues in front of each booth. The last thing you want with only 60 minutes to make a connection at LAX is to have one of these twerps saying “Ok sir please go and join the queue behind the man with the beard and the ‘Death to America’ t-shirt!
On a side note I am sure that apart from the phenomenal marketiing opportunity by ANZ, imagine how much time and money they will save avoiding delayed flights andmissing passangers!
Vancouver - I am coming to you!
Steve
August 13th, 2007 at 6:27 am
Well, crap.
There’s not much worse or our sorry situation on the world’s diplomatic radar than treating people who WANT to visit us like criminals. (Okay, maybe there’s the whole starting a war under specious terms, that could damage our image some.)
I’ve got a Euro-house guest now who tells me she’s stunned, stunned at how nice we Yankees are. She expected us to be afraid of strangers, cold, and mean. But nope, not the case. Still, if we won’t let you in the door to experience that for yourselves, then there’s little hope for the kind of citizen diplomacy that’s so critical in this craptastic era in American history. And now, avoiding us is a “feature”? A “bonus”? Great.
Let the hating continue. Sigh.
August 13th, 2007 at 8:43 am
It’s not a case of hating - just hassle! It is a hassle for non-Americans to get into America. It is even a hassle for them to transit. Many people enroute to NZ don’t want that hassle and transit via Asia. If you have ever been to Singapore airport you will know just what I mean. The comparison with a transit in LAX is remarkable.
From what I hear, the London-LAX-Auckland route has been suffering due to the problems of transit. People have been voting with their feet, and now ANZ are doing the same.
Steve
August 15th, 2007 at 11:30 am
You’re both right, about hassle as well as hate. People don’t like being treated like crap, especially by a country that sets itself up, arrogantly, as being better than everyone else.
People are voting with their feet, as Steve pointed out. And it’s not just about tourism or transiting through our airports. I have an aunt in Russia who is single and over 70, and we tried to get a visa for her to come visit, her first time to America. Not only was she turned down, no reason given, but the embassy interviewer treated her so horribly that she decided she never, ever wanted to travel to America. She never wanted to go through that again. I’m told that they automatically assume people like my aunt want so badly to live in America that they’ll come over here and clean their relatives’ houses and overstay their visas and we’ll be overrun.
My aunt, I reiterate, is over 70. Her entire life is in Russia. She speaks no English at all. She’s a nuclear engineer. I hardly think she wants to come clean my house. But it’s a moot point, as she now loathes the way America treats visa applicants and refuses to put herself through that again.
It’s all part of the same problem, combined with incredibly cumbersome and outdated systems. Honestly, what country doesn’t have some sort of transit system where you can transfer through the airports without going through immigration? It’s insane, and inefficient. So much for the touted benefits of pure capitalism!
August 16th, 2007 at 12:11 am
Alas it is not just the US visa system that treats people like crap. A good Indian friend of mine who runs a successful travel business in Delhi wanted to come for soome meetings in London recently. I sent a letter of invitation on company letterhead inviting him to stay at my house, with details of a couple of the interviews I set up, and he was still refused, without them even checking with me that the letter was genuine. This from a guy with a passport full of French, Belgium and Swiss stamps from other business meetings, where he had still managed to go home to India.
I got hold of the Embassy fax number and sent them a blistering fax, saying they had insulted me and my friend, pointing out thatif he was in France and wanted to be illegal in the UK he could have slipped across along with the tens of thousands of East Europeans and that why would a successful high caste business man living a fantastic life in Delhi want to come and wash dishes in Brick Lane for less than minimum wage. He got the visa, butstill had to pay, in effect, double for it.
I think that this is where much of the problem lies - turning people down instantly raises extra money, avoids dealin with paperwork and is an instant filter as many people don’t reapply. Decent people are banned from visit family and friends in our countries yet obvious illegals seemingly cross both our borders with impunity!
Steve
August 17th, 2007 at 11:00 am
Steve,
Yup. What more can I say? In the book I reviewed somewhere earlier on this site (”Held at a Distance,” the one about Ethiopia), the author tells an almost identical story, trying to get her aunt a visitor visa to the US. What is it about consular officers?
I like the Australian system the best, but then, they do so many things more efficiently than we do (banking, for one). You just apply online, it takes a few minutes, and is good for a year. The visa is all electronic, which means they just swipe your passport when you enter the country.
Of course, that didn’t stop the government from making me jump through an absurd number of hoops to get my pension out of the country when I moved away.