My 24 years old son has just returned from Florida for the Christmas season.

He is current ly on a US visa and attending flight school in Naples.

He flew from Fort Meyers to Orlando and then a connection to New York where he boarded Aer Lingus flight 104 to Dublin and the Aer Lingus 202 to Manchester.

He somewhat surprised me by telling me that his passport was checked once at New York and that's it.

At Dublin he was directed straight through to his connecting flight and at Manchester he was treated as a domestic flight passenger so no checks.

Is this normal?

Strikes me as seriuous breach of security.

Identify verification does not add any security. Ireland and the UK are part of the Common Travel Area, which means there are no passport checks. The is similar to (but separate from) passport-free travel within the Schengen zone.

Strikes me as the sensible way to do things. No need to check the passport more than once before boarding his international flight.

The only person to perform document checks for domestic segments, e.g. RSW is to prevent the situation where someone is stuck at an international gateway, e.g. NYC because they can't board the international flight. The sole reason carriers check travel documents at all is to protect themselves from liability if a passenger is denied entry on arrival. In theory, Irish authorities could have conducted a passport check at DUB and if your son lacked a passport, denied him entry and required EI to return him to NYC. Customs could have checked his bags at MAN.

Very interesting replies.

Most of my travel is within the EU and yet I am required to show my passport at my point of origin and my destination.

The checks take longer since the terror threat ramped up. Previously I would just wave the cover of my EU passport at the immigration official and get passed through. Now they examine it and check it with their database as well.

So if I, for argument's sake, am an undesirable person under UK law I can board a plane to Dublin from NY and be happy that I can get into UK without detection?

You're all claiming that an immigration entry check in Ireland was not expected? Come on!

In any normal case, your son would have gone through an immigration inspection when entering Ireland from the US, unless there has been a policy change since I last flew ORD-DUB. The UK are counting on Ireland to keep watch, because through travel to the UK is essentially domestic travel.

IME the immigration check at DUB for transiting British passport holders often consists of a brief glance at the cover of the passport by a very bored-looking Garda and a wave through.

I've been waved through by the Garda just for having a British accent (even when using my Canadian passport)!

The UK and Ireland share immigration information.

It is unclear from your post whether your son went through passport control upon arrival at DUB.

Does Dublin have an international transit area (thus the traveler never "officially" going into Ireland)? If this is the case, it would make sense for the passport to only be checked upon arrival in Manchester. I am not sure how this works with the Common Travel Area, but perhaps passport control does not always take place at the first landing within the area?

In my experience, there is no transit zone, and this includes those not continuing onto another part of the CTA (i.e. transit for those continuing on to Schengen). This might have changed recently, but I once found myself in a potentially precarious situation because of this. I ended up getting an entry stamp with a notation that I was in transit to a Schengen airport.

Anyway, if the OP's never saw any passport control, or at least someone standing there looking at passport covers that were being offered, I would be surprised. If, on the other hand, people with EU passports were waved through, then that is somewhat understandable, as I, even as non-EU, have been allowed into France after just a glance at my Re-Entry permit cover (it wasn't even a passport!).

If, however, passengers from the US were funneled through a, say CTA arrival route, I would be very surprised... maybe it was mistake?

Are you travelling within Schengen or not? The EU is of little relevance when it comes to whether there are passport checks or not. Who conducts these passport checks?

There is some useful info in the following about DUB transits.

http://migrationireland.blogspot.com...rport.html?m=1

Exactly my thoughts.

He was not asked to show his pasasport at Dublin and this was confirmed by cabin crew on the flight as he was concerned he would miss his connection to Manchester.
The Aer Lingus flight was delayed out of NY.
The cabin crew told him he would not have to go through immigration so he would have time. My son said it was wonderful as he just got off the plane and followed the directions to the departure area, so no immigration, no customs.
At MAN there was no immigration check.

My son did not even meet an immigration official

Not at all

Passport not checked at MAN either

Sorry should have quoted messages in replies