There was a case in the Telegraph last week of someone who is a Malaysian national, and needed a VISA to transit LHR>LAX>AUK for 2 hours, even though she was getting back on the same plane to continue her journey!
Apparently, the US has had "threats" of people in transit being terrorists.
What if you went EWR > LGW > INV? Would the same rules apply as EDI, bearing in mind there are no scheduled international flights to Inverness? Or even EWR > GLA > BRR? Where is the cut-off?
If I remember rightly, last time I arrived in EWR, they were calling some people through from Frankfurt who were transiting to San Jose (Costa Rica), and they seemed to have been able to divert them away from immigration. It seems an awful waste of everyone's time to queue for 1 hour, just to go and jump on another plane. Has anyone told them of all the duty free shopping & catering revenue they are losing by doing this? The facilities have certainly expanded at EWR in recent years - as people get used to spending more time at airports, surely it is in their interests to minimise queue times as much as possible, therefore maximising airport revenue? Wasn't PIT the first US airport to relax the entry rules about ticketed passengers, because they have one of the largest airport malls in the US? Operated by BAA isn't it
?