One of the great things about flying to the United States from Shannon and Dublin in Ireland is US Preclearance. At the moment, there is a trial happening in Dublin, where the Preclearance security check is no longer required for some people.
For those that don’t know, US Preclearance allows you to enter the USA as a domestic passenger. You go through customs and immigration Passport control while still in Ireland. It makes the arrival experience very smooth and the two Irish airports are the only places in Europe that have it.
Preclearance Security
When departing Dublin’s Terminal 2, the usual flow is like this. You arrive at the airport and go to your airline check-in desk, drop off your bags and get your boarding pass.
Next, you go up two sets of escalators where you arrive at the normal security screening area that everyone uses. You do the usual things there like taking laptops and liquids out of your bag, and go through the scanner and you’re then on the other side and done.
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- Heading down to U.S. Preclearance.
Passengers heading to the USA next head down two sets of escalators to US Preclearance. Your boarding pass is scanned and you arrive at Preclearance security. This is essentially the same as before, though you need to take off your shoes, and once through, you head to Passport control, whereupon you “enter the USA”.
At the moment there is a trial on, where some people originating in Dublin no longer have to do security again. I imagine the thinking is you’ve done it perhaps minutes before, so why repeat it? People are instead sent straight through to Passport control. Note here that if you are connecting in Dublin to a flight to the USA, having started in another city, you will still always be required to do the screening.
Overall Thoughts
Apparently Shannon Airport have had the single security check for a few years. Now Dublin will hopefully follow suit permanently. It appears Dublin’s security screening has been moved to a level that Department of Homeland Security / TSA approve of.
Let’s hope the trial works out, because it saves a whole lot of time and extra palaver for passengers flying transatlantic. People won’t have to arrive quite so early to the airport any longer, which can only be a good thing. I hotly await an official “trial successful” announcement!
What do you think of this change to preclearance security in Dublin? Will it make a big difference for you? Thank you for reading and if you have any comments or questions, please leave them below.
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Featured image via Mercury Engineering.
I went through on the 19th of April, pleasantly surprised, wish I had known I would have had a lie in lol Long may it last!
Hear, hear! Glad you got to experience it and thanks for the comment!
Desperately hoping they do this for Aruba too, it’s a total @#$% show that takes a ridiculous amount of time to go through security twice and passport control twice in the span of an hour and maybe 1000 feet (in minimally air conditioned spaces). Fine to do passport checks, but to pick up your “checked bags” again to be screened again plus your carry-ons seems asinine.
Yeah, it’s a pretty ridiculous situation when you have to do that. From what I can see, it’s the local security not meeting US requirements in some way or another. Amazing how airport security is so vastly different across the world when it comes to standards. I can see why some people refer to it as “security theatre”. Thanks for the comment!
Just flew DUB-BOS yesterday.
They checked my passport and sent me directly to the gate. No second security screening.
Nice surprise.
I can imagine it would have been! I’ve seen a few comments around from people saying it’s happened to them. Let’s hope it stays this way. Thanks for the comment!