Ryanair to United connection Dublin Airport
 

Not sure if this is the right forum for this question - mods, please move if not.

I am arriving at Dublin Airport on Ryanair from Luton, then transferring to United to Newark. I know I have to get from T1 to T2. What is the quickest way of doing this? I will be handluggage only and will have my BP for the United flight already printed out. I also have Global Entry.

Can I use the airside walkway or do I need to exit security and transfer landside?

Thanks in advance for the help and advice.

It should be possible to use airside walk, but I guess with Ryanair you could come in to different places in the airport so there is always a risk. You will need time anyhow to do customs at Dublin.

I'd timewise allow for going out and in again, purchase fasttrack (around €5) if you are worried about time, it doesnt normally take long, though time of day is always a factor.

Dubal

Don't forget you need to leave time for US Immigration, which occurs at Dublin. The queues can be long.

Some details on times and flight numbers might help us give more appropriate advice.

If you are thinking of doing FR331 LTN-DUB 0630-0750 > UA22 DUB-EWR 0900-1150: Don't!!

If I'm not mistaken, because Ryanair use the 100 gates at Dublin you have no access to the connections channel. You get funnelled straight into the arrivals immigration area.

Oops. That is exactly the itinerary. How impossible is it? If I buy fasttrack through security in T2 does that make it any easier?

I am afraid to say that I already booked the tickets so I am already committed to this... have I made a huge mistake?!!

I wouldn't say a huge mistake. I'd say pretty close to monumental.
Your assumption that you will be able to do OLCI for the TATL is subject to the whims of UA's technology.
You have to hope the technology gods are smiling on you. If not, you are completely hosed. Then you have to hope the FR flight is early or at worst, on-time. Then it will take 10-15 mins to get from arrival gate through immigration and customs at T1. Then you have to hoof over to T2 (10-15 mins). Then go through security (1-10 mins or more depending on queues and who's ahead of you) and get down to USCBP ... and hope the lines there aren't too bad. Be prepared to pay a hefty change fee or buy a new ticket on UA to EWR via IAD (if 127 is operating that day).

or maybe see if there is an earlier flight to get you in to DUB earlier (i.e. the previous day)

This. There's an insane number of flights from all London airports (OK, not Oxford before someone pipes up) to Dublin. There are also cheap hotels near the airport. Would be a wise investment.

This is, indeed, bordering on the insane. However, if you have absolutely no choice but to do this, you can do one or two things that will give you a chance.

- First, the (only) good news. FR, for all the criticism it attracts, has an excellent on-time performance, and frequently arrives early. On a LTN-DUB flight, that's only going to be a few minutes though.

- Pay the extra for priority seating (which gives you priority boarding as well). You'll get the front seats (probably even row 1), and you'll be pretty much guaranteed to get your bags on as well. If you don't, you may well not get your luggage onboard and it'll be checked into the hold. At that point, you might as well give up.

- Pay for priority security (assuming you're in Y - you'll get it anyway in J).

As others have said, flying the night before and staying in a hotel is absolutely the right thing to do. Hopefully your FR flight was cheap and therefore it's not too much of a loss to write-off.

The other good thing is that the Luton flight is the first flight out, so is usually at least on time as its not subject to delays from incoming planes etc..

I think the priority boarding is a must and obviously no checked in bags.

If you make it to US customs (and you are already checked in), they do call out flights that are closing and will allow you to skip the queue, you need to find the person walking around with your flight number on a board and identify yourself.

I think its doable (with luck), but you will need to find a way to get through both queues (the dublin airport baggage check and the US customs one) without queuing. Go to the business class/ priority queue for baggage and show them your boarding card and be really nice.

There is another option if you cannot book a new flight, if you go to any Ryanair desk and say you booked the wrong flight, they usually let you change for £100. If this is cheaper than booking a new flight for the previous day - try it.

Good Luck
Dubal

Bear in mind that you are not a connecting passenger as you are on separate tickets.

Thus, if you no show for your UA flight, your ticket will be cancelled and will retain whatever value it has. That value can then be used to purchase a new ticket on the next available flight at the then prevailing walk-up fare, but only after payment of whatever penalty the fare rules require for your ticket.

You may also get lucky and encounter a sympathetic UA agent who reroutes you at no cost, for the fair difference but without penalty or somewhere inbetween.

Because the risk of missing your onward flight is great and that onward flight is likely the more expensive of the two tickets and because you cannot now know what will happen if you misconnect (and at a minimum, you will be on your own for 24 hours if there is space on the next day's flight), I would strongly advise doing whatever it takes to fly in the night before including locating the cheapest LON-DUB ticket to be found.

update
 

Hey all, thanks for your comments and advice. Here's an update on what actually happened: it went like a dream! My Ryanair flight got in about 20 minutes early, I had booked myself in row 2 so I was more or less first off the plane. No bags checked, went straight through T1 customs with no line, walked over to T2, through security with FastTrack (which I had also pre-booked online, although there were no lines on the regular side either), then through Global Entry, to the departure lounge, and actually had a few minutes to wait until boarding started!

All told I figure that I had about 1/2 hour to spare before they would have closed the gate.

Clearly I was lucky, and I am not sure I would run this risk again, but at least on this occasion, it worked out...
:cool:

Well, that's great. As you say, you were probably lucky - my bolding shows the real reason you made it, I suspect. If 20 minutes early had turned into on-time, and you'd been further back in the plane, you'd really have been sweating the rest of it! Your GE probably sealed the deal as well - most people wouldn't have that luxury.

Just in case anyone else picks up this thread from a search and fancies trying this off the back of the OP's experience, the answer is most definitely still - don't! :D