US Preclearance
I have just read that the US is considering extending preclearance to Heathrow & Manchester.
US Considers Expanding Airport Preclearance
My question is how will it work at LHR. Presumably you would require dedicated gates & concourses. Fine if you dedicate a concourse of T5 & a wing of T4, etc, but very hard in practise without building new infrastructure as there are not many spare gates. Could you build an additional US preclearance story above the existing concourse? It could be incorporated into the "toast rack" in the long term but what of the medium term? Any thoughts as to the feasibility anyone?
Would be difficult.
Could indeed dedicate one of the "toast racks", for this. It would probably have to be one of those that will be built on the present Heathrow-3 site after demolition so that it could be accessed from both Heathrow-5 and Heathrow-1/2.
This means that the underground transit railway would need to run all the way between Heathrow-5A and Heathrow-2C, but access from Heathrow-4 would be problematic.
Also, it would have to be a very big, well-staffed and efficient facility, with long opening hours, to cope with the numbers bearing in mind the amount of flights to the USA.
Looks like the proposed pre-clearance facility at the rebuilt Ringway-2 is going to be simpler to organise and probably the first in the UK to open.