Some worrying replies here. Most, as pointed out by satpak77, would fail a basic economics course. Making travel easier and more pleasant is in ALL of our best interest. I want your airline to improve its game, grow and succeed. Everyone's airline. Better product and a better experience encourages more people to travel, creating more pilot jobs and opportunities for all of us. I applaud everything that helps that goal. The TSA madness in the US is a blight on the industry and should be greatly improved. Customs is a necessary precaution but it is dreadfully organised in many US ports. This facility is being proposed because Abu Dhabi has more than 1 trillion US dollars in the bank. That's not a typo. Get those people to NY and start using American ingenuity to separate them from their cash! They'll love it, more of them will fly, Delta and United will start flying there and on it goes. Closing up shop is a regular union goal and it's a bad idea whichever union is proposing it.

 

oh and by the way, if my family is travelling from Point A to Point B, frequent flyer miles aside, I am sending them on the airline with the best service and treatment, price being a consideration also. But I will pay (a little) more for service versus bargain basement prices on an airline with 5 connections and record of poor customer service.

yes, amazing concept, something ALPA and airline CEO's might try to understand.

more and more I see ALPA as being retards and not having adopted to the way the world operates in 2012.

 

maybe because the Sheik flies to NYC and spents four zillion at Macys and spends two weeks at Four Seasons it may stimulate our economy

taxpayer funds ? you mean the same ones used to rebuild holy temples in Iraq ? or on studies to determine if the butterfly is going to be extinct? or on the F-35 fighter which can't fly in the rain? those funds ?

uh, my vote goes for pre-clear

 

No access because they choose not to fly there.
The AUH-US service needs more flights, I fly to JFK and ORD from here as a passenger and I always worry if I'll get a seat as the load factors are so high. BTW hardly any joining pax, most are connections generally from India and Pakistan.

 

I hope DL, AA and UA would come here, I need more options to get home.

 

"more and more I see ALPA as being retards and not having adopted to the way the world operates in 2012."


Who exactly are you calling a retard?

 

The US needs the bases in the UAE to support the war in SW asia. This is a way to make nice with the UAE.

 

We have plenty of bases here. The F-22 are parked 30 kilometers from my house. Plenty of seal teams as well. Don't think that is the case.

 

Don't forget that the only place in the Gulf where the US Navy parks its aircraft carriers is in the UAE at Jebel Ali near Dubai.

 

So, does AUH-US need more frequency, or does India-US and/or KHI-US need more frequency?

It seems, by your own admission, AUH isn't a origin for USA passengers (except you, of course). And THAT is precisely why only 1 airline serves this route with only 2 flights a day.

Supply and demand - that's 'junior high economics', right? There is no supply issue. Current DHS staffing in JFK and ORD can easily process 556 passengers (the full capacity of 2 Eithad A340-600's - yes, I counted the seats, and that's being generous, since the ORD route is on a 777 right now, I believe). With only 2 flights a day, there is no demand issue here to address either. For anyone who's gone through C&I as a revenue passenger in JFK or ORD behind a 747, you can clearly see the demand formula that DHS uses is on the lean side. 556 passengers is not going to meet the trigger to open a new pre-clear.

Cost-wise, the host country will shoulder some expenses, but not all. $3.5M was budgeted for DHS's Immigration Advisory Program in Abu Dhabi this year as part of DHS's 2012 budget. Say the US staffs 21 agents there (6 agents to process 46 passengers per flight, plus 6 agents to do baggage screening, 4 agents to to investigation, 4 agents to supervise - seems way too lean for the US government, but, suppose these very conservative #'s were accurate). The current ME & I OCONUS rate for Abu Dhabi is $186/day. That's almost $1.5 million just in per diem annually. Add in lodging and imminent danger pay (yes, Abu Dhabi qualifies), and we get a total of over $4M in costs each year, just so that Eithad can pre-clear 2 flights of connecting Indians and Pakistanis to the US, on top of the $3.5M we spent this year. These costs are starting to add up, no?

This is the same issue the F-35 program has. It's not the start-up costs, it's the costs over the life of the program that are the big player.

As the New York Times reported in June 2012:
That is where the focus should be, "expanding an American presence at airports with a significant number of United States-bound flights.". Abu Dhabi, with 2 flights and less than 600 travelers per day, is a waste of US taxpayer's resources.

So far, the main cheerleaders for this issue on this forum are 2 UAE based pilots, and a pilot who wants his ride home to be easier (also UAE based, but at least open about his motives).

Where the US 5th fleet makes port calls or where US Air Force assets are deployed has nothing to do with this discussion.