dca100

Wise words. I completed a B2B trip to DUB earlier today. It was a total nightmare and it was only through great luck, sprinting and pleading that I made it.

The outbound from LHR was delayed and landed at the 200 gates some 15 mins late. This left me with a notional 30 minutes to get through the airport and back to the gate. I was looking for the recently-reported way of doubling back to the gate but if there is one I couldn't see it.

The queue for passport control was enormous. I'd estimate at least 25-30 minutes. So with no other option I pleaded with a staff member for help. Very fortunately the person i asked generously got me close to the front of the queue, so was through in about 10 minutes all told. 20 mins remaining to departure!

I then sprinted to flight connections - the length of the terminal or at least it felt that way - to be confronted with another quite long line for security. I managed to beg my way to the front (thanks to some very kind and generous people in the queue).

Through security, I was then faced with a final sprint the length of the terminal again to gate 204. I made it with 8 minutes to spare before scheduled departure time. It seems I struck lucky that the late arrival mean't that the gate closed about 10 mins later than scheduled.

I was the last to board the plane and it took me about half of the flight back to LHR to recover.

So I avoided disaster, but only by the skin of my teeth. I'd say that B2B from Dublin is a categorical NO now. Far too risky and probably impossible without help to jump queues.

As an aside logistics-wise, back at T5 for some reason I decided to go through flight connections rather than the land-side > First Wing route. Another bad decision - the queue for connections security was huge too.

Lesson learned. I'd advise an absolute minimum 90 mins between flights at DUB and would rule out B2B all together.