Originally Posted by
Suzeman
I'm sure the US authorities will only want one facility due to cost reasons; that's why the DUB one doesn't cover flights later in the day. That means that it will be impossible to fit all the US flights in unless they are moved to the terminal with the facility and what does that do to terminal capacity?
If I remember correctly, the DUB facility is flexible, so that when the US bit closes, most of the area can be used for "ordinary" flights
It certainly used to be the case that there was a need for the UK to enact legislation to allow USPBC to take place on UK territory. Not sure whether this is still the case, but it would appear if LAX-LHR is correct that at least progress is being made now.
And it is encouraging to see that again according to the above quote, that MAN have made a bid and US DHS has approved it. You see Bagso, you never know what is going on in the background out of the public domain...
So if MAN has made a bid and it has been accepted, they obviously have a cunning plan in place to do this, so we need to await the details. Whether we will have to wait for the terminal redevelopments or some thing will be possible in the shorter term remains to be revealed. But as other posters have pointed out, this gives an ideal opportunity to provide a proper integrated facility as part of whatever the re-development is.
The DUB facility used to close early, but for the last couple of years it hasn't. The only US bound flights not using DUB are Ethiopian. All the others do. The last EI leaves some time between 5 and 6 local IIRC. The sterile area is on the ground floor below the regular (IE non-US bound) waiting area for gates. The whole floor is closed off when not in use, which is no problem because it isn't needed.
I have found it very useful when using it. The key was not to go down too early as there was only a WH Smith (Smyth?) And nothing else down there. I believe they're adding more facilities now though.
What time does the last flight to the US leave MAN? One of the issues is that say if the facility is only open for 7 or 8 hours, shop/restaurant companies are less willing to pay to sell for that short a time vs opening in a more general area, so realistically any bars etc will need to be run by the airport authority themselves. Expensive but worth it I would think.
Not a problem the likes of YYZ and YUL face in their pre clearance areas as they have flights to the US all day long and can justify the expense