ratechaser

Just completed a DUB B2B (well sort of - out of LCY and back to LHR) to secure silver for another year. What surprised me was that both at DUB and LHR I went through international arrivals, with no alternative but to use the automated passport gates. Likewise BA wanted to see my passport on boarding in both directions.

This may have been covered to death and if so apologies. And I do recall a thread that had the memorable line that the best way to prove you don't need a passport is to have a passport - but I guess I was just a bit surprised that despite the CTA, it was indistinguishable from any other international flight.

Is this entirely normal? Not a gripe, just curious...

jerry a. laska

Yes. See these discussions:
Quick Turn in DUB Advice
LHR-DUB child ID requirements
Self-Connecting at DUB - Hand Baggage Only

KARFA

I haven't done LCY-DUB before, but when flying LHR-DUB and not checking a bag you do not need to show a passport at all on departure - it is very much like a domestic departure and uses the same biometric system. I am not clear why LCY would think they need a passport on boarding tbh,

On arrival in to DUB, they don't segregate CTA arrivals from other international arrivals so as you mix you do need to go through immigration. You can use e gates and obviously no stamp needed. Effectively you need to show a passport to demonstrate you don't need a passport!

On coming back to LHR you bypass immigration at T5 so no passport on arrival since DUB arrivals are segregated from other international arrivals.

zen100

Entirely normal when going to DUB.

Coming back to LHR - a few weeks ago, I was able to skip immigration and dumped straight into the international baggage hall, so had to go through customs. If you had to go through immigation on return to LHR, that does seem unusual.

Note, that the CTA doesn't guarantee no checks, just that the UK side tends to take a lighter touch. But it's still within the CTA agreement to do immigration checks, to confirm you are a British/Irish citizen. So while going through immigration at LHR from DUB may be against the norm, it's not "wrong".

ratechaser

Thanks, so it sounds like showing my passport at LCY (and there was a very clear pre-boarding announcement at the gate that this was required), plus being put into the international arrivals track when coming back to LHR T5, were not entirely standard procedure.

KARFA

Do you mean you went through immigration on arrival to LHR? If so that was not correct process.

Did you arrive at A23 or A22? When you come off the jetbridge there is a corridor right ahead which leads you to come out after immigration and then you exit through the international baggage hall. If you go right (so if connecting to an international flight) that leads you around to normal international arrivals and also flight

ratechaser

I wasn't paying all that much attention on arrival TBH, I just followed everyone else - it was a right turn off the jetbridge and through some open sliding doors that had big red 'no staff access' markers on them...

Pilot37

The question is if you had to show your passport to anybody upon arrival at LHR - if you didn't, then you went through the CTA arrivals channel as per normal for Jersey / Dublin / IOM flights.
LCY doesn't do biometric for Dublin (no idea what is done for domestic flights), so you need to show some form of ID just like in Dublin.

Pilot37

ratechaser

nope, definitely went through the 'U.K. Border' - I think it's as Karfa mentions, there's an alternative route I didn't see, but based on this sample of 1, it wasn't exactly obvious which way to go!

MDTyKe

AFAIK DUB at least has no separate CTA arrivals - everyone is treated as an Int'l arrival.

CTA privileges only apply to full British citizens or Irish citizens, not to others - so technically you need to prove your eligibility for that somehow.

It's surprising that the other direction (IE->GB) doesn't require anything though. Is this not technically a customs loophole too, e.g. XX-DUB-GB?

Genius1

You followed the purple Flight Connections sign at the top of the airbridge instead of the yellow Arrivals and Baggage Reclaim sign.

ceej123

At LHR, for a DUB arrival you skip the immigration controls but still pass through the customs element so no loophole as such - unless someone massively messes up with gate assignment and then disembarking. I haven’t yet done LCY from DUB so can't comment there but I guess you’re probably just sent through the intl track.

zkzkz

When departing for DUB if you have a UK or IE driver's license and you were born in the UK or IE (which shows on your driver's license) then that would have sufficed. But yeah the easiest way to show you don't need a passport is to show your passport On arrival in DUB you could in theory have shown your boarding pass from Heathrow instead of your passport, you may also have had to show your driver's license again but I'm not sure.

On arrival at LHR there should have been a staff member right as you exited the jetway. In fact they should have insisted on seeing your passport or onward itinerary before letting you through to the international connection path. If you don't have a UK passport or an onward itinerary they're supposed to require you to exit directly bypassing the border check.

Things get more interesting if you're connecting from an international origin to DUB. In that case you have to go through the UK border as if you're connecting to a domestic itinerary. It's very unclear whether UK border agents understand Irish immigration and residency rules though.

zen100

The loophole is that a non UK/ROI citizen can avoid UK immigration by routing via Dublin.

The CTA only applies to British and Irish citizens travelling between UK and ROI, not every passenger travelling between UK and ROI.

The Irish are actually applying the CTA correctly, by requiring immigration checks on all arriving passengers, even from the UK

ratechaser

I followed the herd

Although the first sign I actually saw was for both arrivals and connections - there was a tensa barrier stretching the length of the corridor, with signs on it for arrivals to the left and connections to the right of it - presumably intended for when it got a lot busier than it was yesterday...