Hi people,
I'll be travelling with my family arriving in Rome FCO from Hong Kong on Cathay arriving in Terminal 3 at FCO at 7:25am. I am trying to make a flight to Catania, Sicily on Alitalia for 9:15 departing from Terminal 1 I think.
These are on separate bookings.
Do you think we will have enough time to collect baggage, go through customs, and check in on time for the Alitalia flight?
Thank you so much for your input!
You will have enough time as long as your flight is on time from HKK. It will be kind of tight.
If you made a separate booking on Alitalia there could be an expensive problem if the flight from Hong Kong is delayed, meaning that you may have to buy another ticket or pay some kind of fee in order to catch the next flight to Sicily.
Personally I would not do this. There's too much chance that your incoming flight will be late and/or that the terminal will be crowded with a jumbo jet full of passengers who just arrived ahead of you.
I've actually just changed this to a 3 hour layover.
I have people telling me this still isn't long enough.
How bad is this airport? Is that not long enough???
Its not that the airport is bad, its the unpredictable amount passengers arriving. To remove baggage from plane & get to baggage pickup could take 30-60 min. Passport control can take 5-60+ minutes. We arrived last week on Thursday with no checked baggage. Our walk from plane to passport control was longer then our wait to have our passport stamped. Went thru in less then 5 minutes. However I did glance over to the passengers waiting for their checked baggage to start dropping from the baggage caroulsel this probably was about 20 minutes after plane had landed.
You'll have to leave the secure area of the airport after collecting your bags, then go to departures to check in, then security, then get to your gate. No one can tell how long you may have to wait for your bags, how long the line will be to check in or how long the security line will be.
A delay on the flight (mechanical, weather, air traffic on take-off or landing are common) can mess you up. If one of your bags is delayed (after waiting for it till all the luggage comes), you'll need time to file a report with the airline and then hope that they'll deliver it to you in Sicily.
Most of the time, none of that happens, except for possible long lines at FCO, and you'll be okay with 3 hours. But if you miss your flight, you'll have to pay last-minute prices and hope there are available seats.
So, how much of a gambler are you?
