US Pre-Clearance At Shannon Moves Closer

The Minister for Transport has published the Aviation (Pre-clearance) Bill 2009. This bill will facilitate the new US pre-clearance facilities at Shannon airport due to open in July this year (and in Dublin airport in November 2010).

Announcing the new Bill, Minister Dempsey said that it "marks a truly historic development in Irish-US aviation relations. From July this year Shannon airport will be the first airport outside of the Americas to offer a full pre clearance service to US bound passengers. This means that passengers on any US bound flight leaving Shannon airport from July (and Dublin airport from November 2010) can have all US immigration, customs and agricultural clearance completed before they take off thus giving them uninterrupted access through US airports on arrival. This will save passengers time, money and hassle.

"Currently only US immigration clearance is carried out in Dublin and Shannon airports and US bound passengers have to clear the other checks when they arrive in the US - that's twice the queuing and twice the hassle."

The Minister added: "I am confident that pre-clearance will bring great benefits to Shannon and Dublin airports and to the participating airlines and their passengers. Since I signed the pre-clearance agreement in Washington with the then Secretary of Homeland Security, Michael Chertoff on 17 November last fantastic progress has been made and I am now in a position to publish the draft legislation that will give legal effect to that agreement."

The basic premise of pre-clearance is that by clearing all U.S. entry procedures before leaving Ireland, aircraft originating in Ireland, or transiting through Ireland, will have a greater choice of airport destinations in the U.S.

The agreement provides for the establishment of mutually acceptable standard operating procedures to be agreed between the two countries with regard to how pre-clearance will work in practice.