When flying from U.S. to Europe and have a layover…
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Anonymous
| in Europe, do you have to go through immigration/customs at your layover location, if it’s a different country than your final destination? Layover is Heathrow, and final destination is Athens, so trying to determine if 1 hour, 15 min. layover is enough time to do whatever it is we’ll have to do. |
Anonymous
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You should look up that info specifically for the UK. I've done stopovers in Europe (Vienna, Zurich, Frankfurt) with less than an 1 hr and have made it through the EU transit checkpoint in that amount of time, but I heard Heathrow can be messier and it's not EU.
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Anonymous
| It depends. Since you are flying into a non-EU country, you will go through customs at your final destination. If your layover is in Germany and your final destination is Italy, you'd go through customs in Germany. |
Anonymous
| That will be tight at LHR just because of the movement between the C gates where the US flights arrive (assuming BA) and either the A gates or another terminal for Europe. Added to that the frequency with which the IAD-LHR flights are delayed. |
Anonymous
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Heathrow is a beast. Maybe others have had better luck than me, but I would not do a connection less than 2 hrs. No matter when I travel, what class I travel, and what kind of skip the line passes I may have, it always takes at least an hour.
I try to avoid Heathrow as much as possible. |
Anonymous
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That is super tight for Heathrow. You have to take a little bus to get to the terminal so you can’t just sprint if your plane is late.
I had a scheduled hour layover once at Heathrow and made my flight but just barely, and I was alone, moving as fast as I could, and I was directed to go through a special tunnel rather than the main concourse to save time. |
Anonymous
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On the way back, give yourself PLENTY of time. Last time I connected via Heathrow, I had 2.5 hrs connection. My flight was delayed an hour and apparently so was everyone else's in Europe because Heathrow was a disaster. The guy at the last security point took pity on me because even though I had 45 min until my flight took off , I never would have made it through the main line in time. He took me through some special back line and that line was 20 min and I still had to hustle another 10 min walk to my gate.
I love London. Heathrow is the devil. |
Anonymous
| Not at Heathrow |
Anonymous
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Agree that 2 hours is better. Even the taxiing to the gate can take a long time at Heathrow.
Note that the UK now requires an ETA visa ($13 for 2 years) even if you are just transiting. Supposedly they are trying to change that but not sure they have or will. |
Anonymous
Correction - they have changed it for transiting if you are not going through border control. That may depend on whether you are changing terminals. |
Anonymous
| At Heathrow last summer there were very fancy new automated scanners with self open/close doors for passport control. It was smooth and did not take too long. |
Anonymous
And good luck getting your luggage through Heathrow if you check that in. |
Anonymous
| You could pull off that short of a connection in other European airports but absolutely not at Heathrow. |
Anonymous
| Although Heathrow has eGates for US passport holders, you will walk Miles to get to immigration. I’d give at least a 2.5 hour layover to be safe. |
Anonymous
And those won't work if traveling with children. |