FCO to Termini time

If arriving at Rome’s Fiumicino airport (FCO) at 7:20a you have time to get through customs, catch the train to Rome’s Termini station and hop on a 10a train to Trani.

You can make your decision after you get through immigration and get your luggage. If you can make the 9:08 Leonardo Express to Termini, then you are in. Buy your ticket after you get to the airport station and you will know your timing. Sounds doable if your plane is on time.

I cannot help but wonder what December weather might do to the timeliness of your departing flights and how certain you can be of an on time arrival in Rome.

I would be inclined to build in some extra slack vs tightening the schedule.

Are all of the trans-Atlantic flight options on Delta, or are some on ITA? Do any require changing terminals at JFK?

Joe32, you're right, winter weather is a consideration. We originally booked the later flight out of JFK because we liked our (then) 4-hour layover. It's now up to 5 hours, which is getting long. But I agree, 2.5 is cutting it a little closer than I'd really like. It's something to keep in mind.

markcw, we are on Delta all the way to Rome. At JFK, we are T4 to T4 connections, so no problems there.

I'll now add that I've just re-reviewed all of our options for getting to Trani, and ITA has just added a flight from FCO to Bari that wasn't there a couple of months ago. Depart FCO 13:35, arr BRI 14:40. This might be our ideal travel plan -- keep the later flight out of JFK, arrive FCO 09:45, then pick up the ITA flight at 13:35. I'm checking with our travel companions (train lovers!) to see if they'd like to make this switch or keep the train.

Thank you for the feedback, everyone. Sounds like if we keep our train plans, we'd be fine making the connection to Termini from the earlier flight, so we'll keep that option on the table.

12:51PM----10:30AM
Wed 4 Dec
BTV
JFK 2h 36m
FCO 2h
BRI

Found this on Delta as a single ticket.

If I were doing the journey, I would be unlikely to choose lugging bags on/off trains, over this option. ( but it's not my trip)

Stay with the original if pre-purchasing train ticket. The new schedule would work but it is too tight and no slack if something goes wrong. If you try the new schedule do not buy your train ticket until you are at the ticket window at the airport. Only then will you know if you can make it.

The big unknown is immigration/passport control. The worst time we ever had was three hours on a Delta flight from JFK on a Saturday morning. Only two lines open. You should be able to get through immigration in an hour but who knows. No reason to make this overly stressful.

Thank you again for all of the feedback.

We've decided to keep our original flights with the 5-hour layover at JFK and then take the 13:35 ITA flight to Bari.

Joe, had that itinerary been available when we originally booked our Delta flights, we would have jumped. But it wasn't, and now it's many hundreds of dollars more per ticket than our original purchase price. I'm buying the ITA tickets on a separate booking for $150 per, and we'll have to hope that the 4-hour cushion at FCO is enough. I'm purchasing fully refundable fares, so if something goes really wrong, we can always cancel the ITA flights and take the train last minute.