US Airways Dividend Miles (Pre-FlightFund Merger) - Connecting to US in Munich

Anyone have any tips or tricks on connecting to US from Lufthansa in Munich.

The routing is FCO-MUC (on LH) and then onto PHL on USAirways

How easy is it?

Is 30 minutes really enough for a minimum connect time as it says on the munich airport website?

Upon transiting in MUC, do you have to go through immigration, or customs or security again?

thanks!

LH has been advertising the "tight connection shuttle service" for months. This means if you have a tight connection at MUC, a shuttle bus will pick you up at one gate and bring you to the connection gate directly. They claim the computer at MUC can autometically find out who has a tight connection, but you better let your crew member know when you board the plane. I don't know how this works for international flights because I either had to wait 2 hours at the airport or simply miss the connection flight at MUC.

If you are taking a RJ from FCO and LH do not offer "tight connection service" for you, you are pretty much screwed because it takes 10-15 minutes to take the shuttle bus back to the terminal and US usually close their gate 20 minutes piror depature. Last time I missed my connection at MAN because US closed their gate 35 minutes piror take off!

FCO-MUC is "domestic" according to Schengen accords (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schengen_treaty), so you won't have to go through customs/immigration.

FCO-MUC is "domestic" according to Schengen accords (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schengen_treaty), so you won't have to go through customs/immigration.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't one have to go through exit immigration formalities before boarding the US flight?

30 minutes will be tight - and US security may take some time.

You'll be arriving on the Schengen level of terminal 2, you'll need to go to the central area, up one level to non-Schengen, through passport control (usually pretty quick), and the haul it about 300 yds to the far end of the terminal (gate H44 usually). There you'll have the departure-to-the-US security check, with wanding and everything, and then you'll have a security interview with the US security people. Only then will you get to the actual gate podium. You may make it if your incoming flight is on time.... I suggest you monitor the flight status of US14 the day before to see if the incoming aircraft is delayed out of PHL, which happens often, and which should help...

The 30-minute connection ad by MUC works well if you're connecting LH to LH, or US-inbound to LH, but it does not apply to flights leaving for the US.

I agree with the previous poster. FCO-MUC was a 737, but even getting onto another LH flight (MUC-CLT) took at least 30 minutes, and we were close to it. There was no immigration checkpoitn coming on an intra-EU flight, but exiting to the US did require a security checkpoint.

Incidentally, when we got to FCO, we didn't know that rule, and we kept waiting for a customs check....that never happened.

Also, don't know if you know this, but if you're renting a car in Rome, pick any agency other than Europcar or Hertz. Both took forever....our family had one of each. Although my dad didn't have Hertz Gold, which may have helped.