[Scoundreller]

> But there's also tons of hotels around airports, you just have to get through security

That works in USA where every international arrival has to be able to, and does, go landside.

In the more advanced world, you may only have authorization to stay in the terminal. Dunno what they do when shtf and people will be stuck for a few days.

[rafram]

The US system doesn’t seem less "advanced" to me. It cuts down on the number of people that connect through the US on non-US itineraries, but I don’t know that there are many US hubs agitating to become city-sized duty free malls like Dubai, Frankfurt, etc. And it makes our airport layouts much less complex.

[cyberax]

There are almost no routes that would want to use the US as a midpoint due to geography. It's pretty much only routes to Central America that make any sense, and there's just not a lot of them.

So the US never felt the need to build airports with dedicated international zones.

[cyberax]

In Europe, you need a transit visa, it allows you to exit the terminal. The UK border agents also can grant discretionary 48-hour visas.

Most other large transit hubs have some sort of visa-on-arrival (Turkey, Dubai, South Korea, etc).

[Scoundreller]

> In Europe, you need a transit visa, it allows you to exit the terminal

Often you don’t need one to transit: e.g. I put some sketchy countries here as a transit passenger: https://www.netherlandsworldwide.nl/visa-the-netherlands/vis...