Important Take Action-US Customs in Abu Dhabi
 

This applies to just about every US based commercial pilot. I encourage everyone to participate in this call to action.


Source: ALPA

The U.S. and United Arab Emirates (UAE) governments are in talks to create a new U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) preclearance facility at Abu Dhabi International Airport—and Etihad Airways’ CEO is “confident” they will succeed. An Abu Dhabi CBP preclearance facility may be great news for state-owned Etihad, but for U.S. pilots, it means just another competitive advantage handed to foreign airlines by flawed U.S. policy. The good news is we have the ability to stop this proposal—by contacting the White House today and telling the administration that this proposal represents a serious threat to our jobs and the U.S. airline industry.

Why would a new preclearance facility in the UAE be so bad for U.S. pilots? By allowing passengers flying to the United States from Abu Dhabi to clear customs while still in the UAE, Etihad Airways provides a hefty convenience for its customers and an advantage over U.S. carriers competing with Etihad to attract the rapidly growing numbers of passengers flying from the Middle East and Asia. There is currently no service via a U.S. carrier to Abu Dhabi, meaning the new preclearance facility will only benefit Etihad—and that jeopardizes your career by strengthening a competitor and disadvantaging U.S. carriers. The United States already operates 15 preclearance locations in Canada, Ireland, and the Caribbean, but each of these airports are served by at least one U.S. airline and much of that traffic to the United States is flown by U.S. pilots.

What’s more, DHS is also seeking permission from Congress to provide more preclearance facilities to foreign governments that will pay. If successful, this “money talks” policy could lead to more U.S. handouts to our competitors. Tell the White House today to end this proposal for a CBP preclearance facility in Abu Dhabi and in other airports around the world that benefit our competitors and threaten the stability of the U.S. airline industry.

----

If your pilot association is communicating on this matter, participate. If you wish to communicate directly with the White House, here is a link:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact

Agreed. I did it. Every ALPA pilot should.

I asked the White House to support it.

Just asking a question. Would this not be an issue if United or Delta flew into AUH? If this program were going to be available in DXB, would there be a call to action since both Delta and United fly there? If United or Delta announce tomorrow that they will begin service to AUH soon, would this call to action go away?

Or am I being short sighted and not seeing the bigger issue? I fully concede that, as usual, it may be operator error!

You realize this statement is left open to interpretation? It can go either way. ;)

Wondering when airlines here in the US will address the actual advantage that other airlines abroad have, better service, plain and simple.

You bring up an excellent point. I'm not entirely certain of other countries laws. Are airlines like Singapore, KAL, Eithad, Emirates, etc allowed to turn down FAs that don't meet their standards for looks, weight, etc? It seems like the US airlines is at a disadvantage because discrimination laws. Then again, if these exist for the airlines I mentioned then they aren't at a disadvantage.

I saw a KAL cabin crew at my LAX layover hotel. Sigh......if only Delta enforced their standards.

It is not the look or age of the cabin attendants as to why airlines abroad have better service, things as basic as clean lavatories, food that doesn't look like dog barf, your bag coming back without several scratches on it (if it comes back the same day that is) the mentality of our airlines is that they are a transport industry, their mentality is that they are in the service industry. What is sad is that the concept was invented here, that is what I think needs to be rediscovered.

What is sad is that US airlines are one of the most regulated/taxed "deregulated" industries out there. What type of subsidies are these "great" foreign airlines receiving from their host countries......

Why don't you tell us, what are the subsidies you speak off?