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Comment by notatoad | Hacker News Reader

Putting the cost of increased staff and gates onto the airports seems like a pretty obvious solution. Short queues can be a competitive advantage for an airport, and are obviously something that airlines (the paying customers at an airport) value. Increase the gate fees to cover the extra cost of more customs agents. It's the easiest way to pass the cost on to the actual users of the service, whether they're tax-paying residents or non-tax-paying visitors.

I'm not sure what the airport's argument is that they shouldn't be paying the full cost of passport control services. A service that only benefits travelers shouldn't be coming out of the general tax revenue funds.

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Competitive advantage for an airport? Airports are chosen based on geographical location, not service. Most people live near one major international airport. There isn't some large market of with airports springing up all of the time, they are dictated by regulatory barriers and are natural monopolies.

Passport control doesn't benefit travelers, it hinders them. It benefits the security of the nation, which is precisely the purpose of the general tax fund.

There is a market when you factor in connecting flights. If, say, Delta wants to pay for better staffing at their international hubs they could market that to prospective customers in their non-hub markets.

"Fly home from Europe through DTW where passport lines are under 10 minutes!"

The article specifically mentions Heathrow, for which there is multiple competing airports.

Not at all. I live about halfway between two "major" international airports, each of which is about two hours by train. Or I have a local airport - ten minutes by city bus - with a much more restricted flight selection. If my destination is London, that in fact translates to a choice of five airports at the other end; and if I decide, for example, that Heathrow is my preferred arrival point, that means not only will I have a very different experience depending on the airline and hence which terminal, but also means I can decide between a direct flight from either of those more distant origins, or to take connecting flights, and thus have a further choice to make in each direction when I may be able to choose between changing in Frankfurt, Vienna, Hamburg, Cologne or Brussels. For a frequent flyer there are so many factors to consider in choosing routes, airport competitiveness is very very important indeed. Recently my home airport had me fill in a passenger survey while waiting to board, designed to elicit my reasons for choosing that airport; they hadn't even begun to scratch the surface of the multiple variables I need to take into account when booking flights.

I'm sure the argument goes somewhat like:

If they had a choice, airports and airlines wouldn't pay for passport control services, because they'd rather not have passport control, it adds confusion and delay to the travel process.

Since governments generally insist on having these services, they should be the ones to pay.

I don't really see how is this a question at all. The state mandates passport control, and any airport wishing to operate legally must contract the border patrol for this, and pay for them. And it should be per checked passport, and they should be able to contract staff based on the predicted demand curve.

Should the highway department pay for the land border crossings?

If it's a new private highway, then the operators should, sure. Other than that it doesn't really matter, as Congress probably budgeted for the border crossing when it decided to build the highway and connect it to the neighboring country's highway/road.

>A service that only benefits travelers shouldn't be coming out of the general tax revenue funds.

I'd argue this point - while I hate borders as a concept, I think the idea is that taxpayers benefit somehow from having border control. National security / economy reasons. What would stop an airport from saying "it's our responsibility? Ok, we hired a bum off the street, he can't read but whatever" and greenlighting everyone going through?

Or, if the argument is "it's government-run, but the aiprot pays for it," I don't know, it seems like it leaves open too wide a door for corruption.

> Or, if the argument is "it's government-run, but the aiprot pays for it," I don't know, it seems like it leaves open too wide a door for corruption.

I would assume there are various things in US that private companies are required to buy from government (e.g. licenses that might include inspections for things like drugs or x-ray devices) and I would at least hope that corruption isn't that rampart there.

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