Talk:Avoiding travel through the United States/Archive

Australia to Canada edit

I thought Air Canada had a new non-stop to down under? I read about it somewhere... I'll try and find a reference. (WT-en) Majnoona 21:52, 3 July 2006 (EDT)

Air Canada is to launch the first ever non-stop flights between Australia and Canada with the introduction of double daily flights December 16, 2004 in time for the peak travel season in the southern hemisphere.

Flights will be operated using 282-seat Airbus A340-300 aircraft enabling Air Canada to offer non-stop service northbound from Sydney to Vancouver. Southbound flights, requiring a brief stopover in Honolulu for refueling, will allow customers to stay on board thus eliminating U.S. customs clearance and transit visas for some travelers including citizens of Australia.[1]

As of late 2005, Air Canada passengers were being disembarked in Honolulu on fuel stops and marched through US immigration and back onto the plane. I'll need a 2006 source to update the page advising people to avoid those flights (assuming that they don't want the transit, of course) (WT-en) Hypatia 22:03, 3 July 2006 (EDT)

And the AC34 flight northbound is now on a Boeing and has the fuel stop... (WT-en) Hypatia 22:16, 3 July 2006 (EDT)

Hmmm, I thought they were running the Boeing and the Airbus, but maybe I'm outta date on my info... (WT-en) Majnoona 00:06, 4 July 2006 (EDT)

Unless Air Canada has an infinite supply of planes, I don't think they can fly Airbuses south and Boeings north all the time :) (WT-en) Jpatokal 00:08, 4 July 2006 (EDT)

Jpatokal's point aside, AC33 is also coming up as a Boeing 767 on their website, at least for some days (I haven't bothered to search for, say, every flight for a week yet). (WT-en) Hypatia 01:57, 4 July 2006 (EDT)

JAL offers direct flights from Vancouver to Tokyo. And lots of flights from Japan to Austalia.

Air New Zealand will be flying to Canada direct from Auckland which will be beneficial for Aussies on the East Coast of Australia.[2]

Maps edit

Here are some maps that got delete from the article. They're just links to airlines, but can anyone find a (good) single map (or just a few) showing all the international flight routes? That could be helpful, but I cannot locate one. 85.10.240.250 12:27, 5 July 2006 (EDT)

Flights avoiding the U.S. edit

The "Flights avoiding the U.S." section is kinda absurd. Info in there should be summarized into the appropriate sections.

As it stands, the whole article is a bit weird in its layout: we should split it up into the nine possible avoid-the-US routing types: {Asia,Australasia,Europe} → {Canada,Caribbean,Central/South America}. (WT-en) Jpatokal 12:31, 6 August 2006 (EDT)

Whoah. Getting a little obsessive there, aren't we? (WT-en) Jpatokal 12:54, 7 August 2006 (EDT)

This appears to be the same person who brought us Airlines (same IP range). I've left a note for him, but he wasn't very responsive when I tried to communicate with him about that article. - (WT-en) Todd VerBeek 07:45, 8 August 2006 (EDT)

I think this article should mention major non-US hubs for avoiding the US, and stick to being mostly about the idea of avoiding the US. The current state where every single non-US route appears to be inserted is just OCD. I support removing the Flights avoiding the U.S. section entirely. -- (WT-en) Colin 13:50, 8 August 2006 (EDT)

This is getting a little ridiculous. — (WT-en) Ravikiran 05:45, 10 August 2006 (EDT)

Wow! Yeah. Especially all that connecting flight info. My goal in starting the page was to document some info I was finding while doing some travel planning and also see what info other folks had (my wife is from one of those countries where it's impossible to get a US visitors visa, but I want her to meet my parents who live in the US but due to age and health cannot travel very far). Expedia et. al. are not helpful. Really I guess I just wanted a list of non-U.S. air-routes in/out of the Americas and surrounds, but I couldn't find one. Maybe the anon user could just tell us what database he's pulling his info from and render this page redundant? (WT-en) Ewlyahoocom 12:50, 10 August 2006 (EDT)

No one seems to have liked this section, no one suggested a good alternative way of formatting it, discussion's been dead for a year and a half, so I've removed it. (WT-en) Hypatia 00:02, 30 November 2007 (EST)

I don't think it's obsessive to want to avoid transits in U.S. airports. If you're from countries other than U.S. and Canada, you have to go through immigration even if you're only transferring flights w/o the intention to step your foot outside the airport - The process of immigration can be quite, very unpleasant and even degrading to people who are from countries that are other than U.S. - lengthy, tedious, and at times almost like interrogation. I noticed that the reason why people transit in U.S. airports are the number of flights available and the price. I think all the efforts preparing for the visa, and the time and stress it takes at the immigration is well worth avoiding the transit.

What if... edit

Just to make you think, if a terrorist/other criminal were able to get ahold of this page and plan to bomb/kill/kidnap in Canada/Australia/the UK, s/he could be able to avoid the US, where s/he could be denied entry. and carry out the act. --71.137.239.197 20:47, 7 August 2006 (EDT)

You are not serious. But to answer the question anyway, this is all publicly available information which a hypothetical terrorist already has access to, and I don't think Australia relies solely upon bad travel planning to keep terrorists out of their country. -- (WT-en) Colin 20:58, 7 August 2006 (EDT)

Similarly, the "Get in" section of many country articles discuss which nationalities will be denied entry, and which will not, so the terrorists could use that information to only go to countries that they will not be denied entry into. THEN the terrorists could use the "See" sections of articles to figure out what the most notable targets would be to bomb, and THEN they could use the "Get around" sections to figure out the best method of getting bombs to those targest... it's all so nefarious once one does start to think... -- (WT-en) Ryan 21:03, 7 August 2006 (EDT)

I never thought of that! Any international flight anywhere in the world should go through the US, just to take advantage of the security measures there. The US, in addition to being the world's policeman, can also be the world's immigration officer now. — (WT-en) Ravikiran 05:55, 10 August 2006 (EDT)

And after that, we're going to work on becoming the world's meter maid, the world's cruise director, the world's pastor, and eventually the world's short-order cook. "To Serve Man" is our motto. - (WT-en) Todd VerBeek 16:56, 10 August 2006 (EDT)

Hmm. I see a conspiracy forming the anon posted that August 7, 2006 and today, August 10th the UK is going nuts. --- (WT-en) Sapphire 17:01, 10 August 2006 (EDT)

A short order cook serving man? Can I get fries with my soylent green? -- (WT-en) Colin 18:17, 10 August 2006 (EDT)

Mmmmmm....man. And surely you want freedom fries with that! Errr... maybe not. (WT-en) Ewlyahoocom 14:17, 12 August 2006 (EDT)

Spin off Avoiding a transit of the UK guide? edit

I'm currently on the phone trying to rerout our flight to Copenhagen so it doesn't go via London (which kills be because I went out of my want to get it via London in the first place!). Considering the state of things, and the fact that they may remain like this (no carry on, no checking bag through, etc), is a UK version of this type of topic a good idea? (WT-en) Maj 22:19, 12 August 2006 (EDT)

I would think so. Plus, from what I understand for non-EU citizens getting transit visas should be harder over next couple of months. -- (WT-en) Sapphire 22:24, 12 August 2006 (EDT)

Canada edit

I have heard that Canada now has similar rules as the US. It mentions on the Toronto Airport site that any connection between other countries require passing through the Canada Border Security Agency. Some other countries may have other rules as well. 70.50.172.156 17:37, 26 February 2007 (EST)

Visas edit

Can you merely transit in the US if you have an existing B1/B2 visa? You may want to put that. I also suggest that you place in the article which of these alternative transit areas require a visa (or at least provide a link giving the pertinent information) because just like the US, not all these alternative countries will allow you a visa-free transit. --210.5.110.56 10:07, 21 December 2006 (EST)

Europe/Homeland security edit

I think the reasons listed at the top should be extended with the whole story about the US' current aggressive policy of fingerprinting, as well as the automatic collection of passenger data in who knows what database, which the EU objected to out of privacy concerns. The problem is I'm not sure how to do that without turning the whole thing into flamebait. Any thoughts ? (WT-en) Peirz

Don't do that. It's not our job to tell people what to do, just how to do it if they want to. (WT-en) Jpatokal 13:02, 6 March 2007 (EST)

Fair enough. (WT-en) Peirz 23:04, 6 March 2007 (EST)

Refuelling Stops edit

"require either a Visa Waiver or C1 transit visa: transferring to another flight; just stopping and not disembarking from the plane; and refuelling stops".

Is it really true that you need a visa if a plane stops to refuel and you stay on board? A few years ago I flew to Mexico, it re-fuelled in Montréal going and Miami coming back (or was it vice-versa) and all the passengers stayed on board. What would happen if now? Would I be stuck in Mexico? Do the US customs come on board and check all the passports? What happens if they plan to re-fuel in Montréal, then because of weather decide at the last moment to make it Chicago instead? CF 14/8/07.

I don't actually know for sure what happens in the case of an emergency landing, but presumably this is a problem shared by many countries around the world and would be sorted out on the ground rather than considering half the passengers illegal immigrants. As for planned stops, in practice they seem now to require that everyone disembark and march through passport control and then back out to the plane while it refuels. (WT-en) Hypatia 23:58, 29 November 2007 (EST)

I had an medical emergency landing in India (where everybody needs an advance visa) en route from UAE to Singapore a while back. It was pretty anticlimactic: everybody stayed on board for three hours while the babus shuffled paper, and then we were off again. (WT-en) Jpatokal 02:16, 30 November 2007 (EST)

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