Going on one ticket from Miami to Catania with connection in FCO next week. Sept 8th. Are the terminals close together and how difficult and/or how much time does it take. Always a problem with my fingerprints? Any advice is greatly appreciated. Luggage will go straight through. Ty again
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Milan Italy
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Hi, Giangilberto from Milan, you have a flight from Miami to Rome to Catania. Catania is Italy, so the second flight is domestic. This means you enter Schengen territory at Fiumicino, not Catania, so you do the EES registration in Rome. With a connecting flight to catch, this is one of the worst-case scenarios, because you don't decide the time; it's the time of the connection.
The EES has been fully operational since April 10, 2026, registering faces and fingerprints upon first entry, IATA warns of queues of up to six hours at several Italian airports, including Fiumicino.
We still need to consider two aspects, one positive and one negative. First, the European Commission says that biometric data collection can be suspended when exceptional circumstances result in excessive waiting times.
The second is that there is a pre-registration app, "Travel to Europe," that would reduce waiting times, and Italy hasn't activated it.
At the moment only Portugal and Sweden have activated it.
So a six-hour forecast doesn't mean six hours of queues, border police can turn off detection to let people pass.
In any case, if you have a single ticket and miss your connection due to border delays, the airline must rebook you; it's their responsibility, not yours.
How much time do you have for the layover before catching your flight to Catania?