Can I use US pre clearance at Toronto?

[BBQ63]

Can I use US Pre Clearance at Toronto Airport. I will be travelling to Melbourne via LAX and only have 55 mins layover in LAX.

 

[RooFlyer]

Welcome to AFF. Unless something has changed, you will have to use pre-clearace at Toronto for entry into the US. Allow extra time (I typically allowed an extra hour).

 

[BBQ63]

Welcome to AFF. Unless something has changed, you will have to use pre-clearace at Toronto for entry into the US. Allow extra time (I typically allowed an extra hour).

Thank you. Does that mean I can just land in LAX and go straight to the terminal my United flight leaves from without having to line up?

Post automatically merged: Dec 23, 2021

And also I presume I get a boarding pass in Toronto for my USA to Australia flight. Thanks, sorry so many questions.

 

[RooFlyer]

Once you pre-clear at YYZ, the flight is treated as a domestic one landing in the USA, so there is no immigration line-up. But I can't remember how baggage worked.

Are you on United all the way? If so I guess bags should be transferred through, and you'll get your international boarding pass in Toronto, but I stand to be corrected on that.

If your flight to Australia departs from Tom Bradley I think you'll have to clear security from the United terminal and that will take time, let alone that boarding for international would start maybe 45 mins before departure and the time to get from one terminal to another.

It will be very tight.

 

[BBQ63]

No I am Air Canada on a UA Flight from Toronto and then United from LAX to Melbourne.

 

[bam71]

Is it all on one ticket? If so your luggage should be through checked to Melbourne, so that is at least one thing out of the way.

 

[RooFlyer]

Both Star Alliance, so the bags and boarding pass should still be OK.

AC uses Terminal 6. See here for how to get from T6 to Tom Bradley:

Atrius Maps

It tells me 21 mins and it doesn't say to clear security on the way. But I'd be checking that, alothough it'll be what it'll be.

 

[BBQ63]

Is it all on one ticket? If so your luggage should be through checked to Melbourne, so that is at least one thing out of the way.

Yes all on one ticket thank goodness. Thanks so much for your help.

 

[dk4]

Once you pre-clear at YYZ,... But I can't remember how baggage worked.

Bags get checked in, as per normal at the check in counter. Once you move through the airport, and arrive at the US per-clearance area 3 things happen:

• you are processed by immigration for entry into the USA. This is your interview at the little cubicle with the CBP officer, if you haven't been cleared through the automated system.
• you are processed by customs (people with HLO often pass through without appreciating this step). There is a baggage carousel where you pick up your checked bags, and different one that you then move them to and put your bags on it. During this process customs might stop and check your bags, or they might not (exactly the same as what you would expect, on arrival into any US international airport).
• you are are security processed under TSA oversight. Security is then conducted to the same standard as a US airport (not to say it isn't to that standard in Canada, but at this point the USA is in charge).

And bang, you might still be geographically in Canada, but officially have entered the USA, in a designated little part of the USA, at the non-US airport, and are officially considered to be departing on a domestic flight.

 

[RooFlyer]

you are processed by customs (people with HLO often pass through without appreciating this step). There is a baggage carousel where you pick up your checked bags, and different one that you then move them to and put your bags on it. During this process customs might stop and check your bags, or they might not (exactly the same as what you would expect, on arrival into any US international airport).

I remember now. I flew YYC (Calgary) to LAX dozens of times 2010-2018 and all you did was carry your bags through immigration checkpoint, then put them on a carousel and away they went. Never a query that I recall.

Almost always AC interlined with QF or CX and I next saw them at the final destination.
I remember too that the security checkpoint ( next) was always very slow and horribly managed.

Vancouver sometimes had a system where you inspected your bag after submission by video and had to answer questions about it to customs officer. But that only happened to me once or twice.

 

[dk4]

all you did was carry your bags through immigration checkpoint, then put them on a carousel and away they went.

Yes, I remember YYC like that, now I am questioning if I got myself confused with how I described YYZ above, and AUA, BDA, or where ever else I have been through pre-clearance... anyway salient point as you said, where ever you do it, pre-clearance is always a slow process... and it involves the same 3 points of contact in some way.

 

[serfty]

@BBQ63 When you arrive at LAX at T6 you look for the signs pointing down to the tunnel walkway for T5, T4 and TBIT (Tom Bradley). It is around the middle of the concourse.

When you reach T5, keep walking. At T4 you head up (stairs/escalator/lift) to the T4 concourse. Head to the right and along down nearly to the end where Gate 41 is on your left. Pass gate 41, turn left around the G41 waiting area and take the escalators up to the elevated T4/TBIT connector walkway. Follow this around and you will find yourself at TBIT - you will need to head down to the TBIT concourse.