Hi,
Looking at flying to Italy through Dublin. Flight arrives 515a and leaves for Italy at 730a. Will that work? How is passport control there? Looks like we will only be in T2. Coming back same thing Arriving 220p taking off again 345p. Thanks for the help!
If your return flight is to the United States, you will go through US immigration proceedings in Dublin so an hour and a half is fairly tight.
We just did this (Duesseldorf, not Rome). The transfer on the way is not a problem. All went pretty smooth, a few wrong turns, but they have people to help direct you at key points. There is no passport control if you are continuing on to another destination.
Returning, we spent the night in Dublin, but you still have to clear US Customs and Immigration at Dublin Airport, so I do not have any experience with doing a direct transfer. I will say that it is similar to clearing US customs in Canada. You will not need to collect your luggage. When you hand the US inspector your passport, and boarding pass AND your customs declaration form, he will direct you to his computer screen and you will see a photo of your luggage on a belt and he will ask "Is that your bag?" If it is and you say yes, he will show another until you have identified all your bags. I was slightly amazed by this technology. We were $100 over the $800 duty free limit, but he just shrugged and said have "Have a nice day."
They do not have duty free sales on the flight to the US because it is now a domestic flight. When you land in the US, you just pick your bags off the belt and you're on your way.
There is a kind of transfer passport control at Dublin which is avoidable only if you happen to use a certain gate combination.
A little more detail, incoming (US to Europe) there is a place in the hall way where you stay to the left to exit to baggage claim and Ireland transfer flights and to the right and down a stairway to get to flights connecting to Europe. There are airport employees there to make sure you get it right. Problem was at the bottom of the stairway, the continuation was not clear. We all got on an elevator and ended up back where we started. The airport employee laughed and asked us what we were doing. "Why didn't you just follow the people in front of you?" Answer, "We did. The first person got on the elevator so we all followed. There is a mass of people down there now waiting to get on the elevator." He laughed "Then take the lift back down and tell those people to take the doorway with the green exit sign!"
Europe to US you will need to go through US C & I. There are about 20 of those terminals where you scan your passport, answer the questions, get your picture taken and a card gets printed you take with you to the Immigration officer. At 9 am this took maybe 10 minutes. This is the time when there a large number of flights to the US, so later in the day it should be even quicker.
