As soon as you land you have to clear customs if you are flying from outside the UK.
Flying home from Brussels last July three hours early was almost not enough time. One line for EU passports and one line for everyone else. I got to my gate just as my flight was boarding.
Huh. Weird if you’re connecting to another international flight . Never had to do that before. That will certainly add time to collect bags, recheck, etc.
I do not recall having to collect bags and recheck (as we do in the US), but the passport control lines can be long. Also, they are pretty picky about carry-on bag restrictions, so if you carry on a “luggable”, expect problems.
My worst nightmare is missing a long flight. They had to hold a plane from Taipei to Houston for me and a few others once. They had a cart waiting for us, zoomed us through the airport, through passport and to the next gate. It’s the best way to move through the terminal.
That’s why I ask if it’s customs or just immigration/passport control. Can be a big difference if you have to do the whole customs thing. And I’ve never flown an international connection through the U.S. I knew you had to collect/recheck if you were connecting to a domestic flight, but I’ve never flown into the U.S. and not stayed.
I do not think you need to go through either customs or passport control. You will stay “in transit” inside the secure areas of the terminal.
It may have been different before (per Navin’s comment) because the UK was part of the EU and that was your first port of entry. That’s no longer the case post-Brexit.
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They told us poor slobs in the everyone else line they would tell the gates to hold the flights. Mine, however, boarded on time, and I made it.
Good point – My last trip through was pre-Brexit. I expect things have changed – for the better, if you are just changing planes.
In the old days, you did not need to collect bags even though you went through passport control. You actually cleared customs (with a “Non-EU-origination” indicator on your bag tag) wherever you ended up leaving an airport. And it was pretty perfunctory everywhere I went. I had a little more “fun” in Lviv once, but that was not EU.
Do not think passport control is a “just.”
And, because exactly zero of you asked, a short meteorology lesson: Classic tropical storm “breeding” ocean temps are 26ºC (just under 79ºF) and make up one of the three main ingredients of storm formation; ocean heat, air buoyancy and up/out moisture transport. Hot water does not really help if there is hot air above to any great depth. And, not all hot water is the same. While the current tropics look scalding:
…the actual, accessible ocean heat is measured in something called Ocean Heat Content (OHC) and is a measure of the temp of the ocean and how deep that heat pool lies. While blazingly hot around the Keys, the heat is actually quite shallow, represented by this pic:
That pic shows the depth of the water that is above that magic 26ºC threshold. As you can see, around the Keys, it is less than 5’ deep so it only takes a small amount of wind for cold water upwelling to rapidly cool things down and cut off the main energy source for storm formation and maintenance.
That combo of heat and heat at depth that can sustain storms is measured by OHC and is well represented here:
All of this rolls up into an Integrated Kinetic Energy (IKE) analysis that measures these ocean heat parameters and combines them with equally detailed inputs on moisture transport, air parcel buoyancy, vorticity and the like to measure the actual potential for storm formation. So, while temps look bad (and are indeed bad for things like coral), we have a ways to go to assess how this years storms will play out. Just some random musings…
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Keep this stuff going as storm season progresses. Fascinating.
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Well, it’s less than the full customs thing, which requires wrangling your bag from baggage claim, schlepping back through check in etc, in addition to passport control. Every minute saved is an extra minute at the airport lounge.
You sir, are a science nerd of the highest order. You’re kind of a hero of mine.
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Some airlines have employees take your bags for you after customs. That was my situation in Baltimore.
Passport control in Europe took hours.
I have never flown into Rome, but I do not imagine it is the model of speed and efficiency. And now there will be Brits clogging up the lines who were in the EU passport holder lines previously.
As to Baltimore, that sounds like what happens in Houston. If you’re coming into the US through Houston but connecting to somewhere else in the US, you have to go through immigration, collect your bags and clear customs. You then re-check your bags for your connecting flight immediately past the customs checkpoint.
As HH is not entering the UK, they will olé him through to Rome as everyone on the London to Rome flight will have to clear customs and immigration in Rome thanks to Brexit.
Customs in Baltimore was two guys watching us walk past. I told the employee taking my bags I had not been through customs. He said “If they did not stop you, yes you have.”
Now that you don’t have to complete the paper customs form, it’s like that in Houston too. Just more people not checking people’s shit.
It was a breeze coming back unlike leaving in Brussels. The passport lines in Frankfurt and Brussels were impossibly long for non-EU people.
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It is definitely two customs checks, one in LHR and once you are in the EU and FCO. Another brilliant win for brexit. If you check your bags to FCO which obviously you will you don’t have to get your bags at LHR and recheck. But you will go through an immigration line, which can vary wildly in times.