Clearing USA Immigration in Ireland

[Paul Lupp]

I recall reading somewhere that you could clear USA immigration in Ireland if flying to the USA from the UK via Ireland.
If I fly from Heathrow to the USA via Dublin on a flight with "one change", including change of carrier, will I be cleared automatically or does this procedure only apply to specific flights, and if so how do you find out which ones?

[DaveReidUK]

US Preclearance Facility (https://www.dublinairport.com/flight-information/travelling-to-usa/usa-preclearance)

[Blackfriar]

Cardiff Airport made a big thing about connecting flights to the USA via dublin and the pre-clearance. Good bit of marketing, why drive to LHR fly to JFK then queue for hours when if you are west of London (or Bristol) you can arrive in JFK pre-cleared.

[longer ron]

I have looked at doing this previously but it never seemed to work out any (overall) easier or cheaper for us,I personally prefer to fly non stop anyway LOL,I can see the attraction of avoiding the big airports in the UK and the Q's at the other end but any preclearance advantage could easily be lost through a number of factors.
As Blackfriar posted - it could work out ok depending on where you live in UK.

[Paul Lupp]

I'm 30 minutes from LHR T5 (Farnborough in my details under my name should have been a clue!) , hoping to go away somewhere for 6 or 7 days in late October or early November but all the direct flights to places that are of interest to me seem to be astronomically expensive at the moment, whereas 1 (or 2 ) stops across the pond seem much cheaper. Bizarely it seems to be cheaper to fly from LHR to SingQuick Reply (https://www.pprune.org/passengers-slf-self-loading-freight/625482-clearing-usa-immigration-ireland.html#qrcontent)apore direct for 6 nights than to most places in the USA or Canada !

[Una Due Tfc]

I recall reading somewhere that you could clear USA immigration in Ireland if flying to the USA from the UK via Ireland.
If I fly from Heathrow to the USA via Dublin on a flight with "one change", including change of carrier, will I be cleared automatically or does this procedure only apply to specific flights, and if so how do you find out which ones?

All DUB & SNN flights to the US preclear in Ireland. So regardless of who you connect with, what time or if you self connect, you would preclear, land in the US, walk straight off the plane, grab your bag and jump in a cab. I find it extremely convenient I must say.

[Asturias56]

It's fabulous going west but coming east you have to transit Dublin which adds time and a non-stop may look like a more attractive option

The BIG attraction is avoiding the dreadful experience of Miami or JFK Immigration after 8-11 hours in the air... we were out of Miami in 30 minutes in March.................

[longer ron]

I'm 30 minutes from LHR T5 (Farnborough in my details under my name should have been a clue!)

I had seen that Paul - but it was a general comment for general interest.
I guess direct flights from Heathrow sometimes are expensive - we generally fly from other airports.

[Una Due Tfc]

It's fabulous going west but coming east you have to transit Dublin which adds time and a non-stop may look like a more attractive option

The BIG attraction is avoiding the dreadful experience of Miami or JFK Immigration after 8-11 hours in the air... we were out of Miami in 30 minutes in March.................


I wonder can you book multi city on the EI or BA website EG LHR-DUB-MIA-LHR and get a BA flight back home?

[MarcK]

There's no guarantee that the queue in Dublin will be short. When I went through there in early August, the lines were about 40 minutes (for those of you without Global Entry)

[Asturias56]

Not bad cp the 2.5 hours I've spent in both JFK and Miami - and its a lot easier queuing at the start of the trip rather than at the end

[longer ron]

I guess it depends where you fly into - our busiest queue was in Dulles (IAD) last year - but the queue management was excellent - they kept moving people into the shortest/quickest areas (even into queues that we were not entitled to be in according to the signposting LOL) so we probably spent between 1.0 to 1.5 hrs in the queue.But we had managed to fly direct/NS from our local airport so an indirect flight would not have been an advantage.
I think the DUB option would only really be worthwhile if it is significantly cheaper - as in Pauls case perhaps.

[Asturias56]

Our company now considers the DUB option as acceptable for work flights - the costs are similar (or even lower) than direct and the travel experience is significantly better - but it depends what your final destination is at the end of the day. One thing is that you have a much greater confidence in making connections at the USA end - we have to allow 2-3 hours for onward connecting flights going direct but using DUB you can easily make a 1 hour connection every time

[pettinger93]

Frankly, ANYTHING I can do to avoid clearing customs in the US would be wonderful. Quite apart from the normal extensive delays, the regularly gratuitously rude and insulting behaviour of the US immigration and security staff at LA has deterred me from travelling there, unless there is no other alternative.

[longer ron]

We have flown into/out of SFO/IAD/DEN (S Francisco/Washington Dulles/Denver) in the last 5 years and have had no trouble at all with Customs and Immigration Staff - they have generally been polite/helpful and sometimes with a quiet sense of humour (although a fair number are fairly serious in demeanor).
I guess it does depend on which airport you fly into but the 3 above were fine,having said all that - much of your 'arrival' experience will always have a percentage of luck involved :).
As I posted previously - flying through DUB may well have advantages for some people but there will always have a slight risk of problems involved with the extra stop/leg and the overall journey time is never going to be faster than non stop.
Personally I much prefer do do a non stop and just get the pond crossing out of the way,because we live north of the border (Scotland) we do sometimes travel a long way to get a decent flight price - the trips I mentioned above were variously flown from Manchester/Edinburgh and LGW - but if we had to travel (say) all the way down to Gatport Airwick for a flight - we would always fit in at least few extra days and visit family and/or (say) Duxford or similar.

We did a road trip round some of the eastern/north eastern states last year (from IAD) and the only place we came across an a55hole border officer was when we walked across the Rainbow Bridge at Niagara Falls, when we made the mistake of asking him some advice as we left the US side - the guy was obviously a bit of a psycho,when we returned later after having had a lovely couple of hours in canada all the other border officers seemed friendly and fairly laid back.

[Cheltman]

I have flown Aer Lingus to Seattle a few times from UK. Outbound is fine. Clearance in Dublin was easy and as has been said its better to get that out the way whilst awake. In business class the Aer Lingus offering was also significantly cheaper when I flew and the service was great.
Its a pain on the way back but at least currently you dont get any immigration check back in the UK arriving from Ireland. I would recommend it particularly if you are more than a few hours from heathrow and can use a regional. As an aside I assume the simple arrival from Ireland into UK will end shortly?

[Economics101]

As an aside I assume the simple arrival from Ireland into UK will end shortly?

I don't think so. The UK-IRL common travel area will still be there, so your arrival at DUB gets you into the CTA, which is quite a separate from (and predates) the EU.

[olympus]

... The UK-IRL common travel area will still be there, so your arrival at DUB gets you into the CTA, which is quite a separate from (and predates) the EU.

Interesting. I'm just back from a few days in Ireland and although I was expecting a passport-free arrival into DUB I and the rest of the pax had to offer our passports to an automated reader/camera arrangement in order to gain entry.

Exiting Ireland at Shannon did not require the production of a passport nor did UK entry at STN but of course you don't get to travel anywhere on Ryanair without your passport!

[alserire]

Interesting. I'm just back from a few days in Ireland and although I was expecting a passport-free arrival into DUB I and the rest of the pax had to offer our passports to an automated reader/camera arrangement in order to gain entry.

Exiting Ireland at Shannon did not require the production of a passport nor did UK entry at STN but of course you don't get to travel anywhere on Ryanair without your passport!

Unfortunately Dublin airport cannot segregate domestic/UK passengers from the rest so everyone has to pass through immigration control.

There will be no chnage in the Common Travel Area no matter what happens with Brexit. That deal has already been signed and sealed. The CTA predates both country's EU membership by decades.