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Flight from Europe to Canada to get to USA


FTLcruisers
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we have a flight booked from Rome arriving in Montreal and then Montreal to Fort Lauderdale.  Will we need to go through customs in Canada?  We only have a little over 1 hour layover in Montreal so just concerned if that will be enough time.  

 

thanks!

 

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You will absolutely have to clear US immigration/customs in Montreal, and that can take a while. One hour is very, very tight. I personally would never be comfortable with it.

 

Assuming you're flying Air Canada, their minimum connection time for International to US in Montreal is 70 minutes. If you're under that, call them to change flights. Even then, 70 minutes would make me quite uncomfortable.

 

https://www.aircanada.com/ca/en/aco/home/plan/check-in-information/minimum-connection-times.html

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Why do I suspect this is a cobbled-together pairing of two separate tickets by an air-sea department??

 

To the OP:  Do you have one or two ticket numbers?  That would be a thirteen digit number provided by the airline/cruiseline.

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10 hours ago, FlyerTalker said:

Why do I suspect this is a cobbled-together pairing of two separate tickets by an air-sea department??

 

To the OP:  Do you have one or two ticket numbers?  That would be a thirteen digit number provided by the airline/cruiseline.

 

I'd be curious now...I looked at Air Canada and for random dates in summer, fall, winter, and spring of next year, their connections are either reasonable (2.5 hours in YUL) or extremely long (18+ hours)...or double connects. I don't see anything remotely close to one hour. Of course, I did select random dates, but about 10 of them between now and April 2020.

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40 minutes ago, Zach1213 said:

Of course, I did select random dates, but about 10 of them between now and April 2020.

 

The OP's cruise arrives in Rome on 18 April 2020, so there's a reasonable chance that it's that day or one of the next few days.

 

A quick search on EF shows:-

18 April: TS --> AC - 2:15

19 April: AC --> AC - 1:35 (but a double connect going first via FRA) or AC --> AC - 2:10 (first via BCN)

20 April: AC --> AC - 1:35

 

I can't immediately see any likely suspects for a non-compliant two-ticket itinerary, so this is all pretty puzzling.

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17 hours ago, Shorex said:

It's very tight. You will go through security, immigration and customs for the U.S. in Montreal.

 

Just to clarify for the OP...

normally one would not go through immigration and customs for the US until actually arriving in the US; however, when coming from Canada (and a handful of other places such as Ireland, and a couple of island countries in the Carib) it is set up to do Pre-clearance of US immigration and customs prior to departure and then you just walk off the plane upon arrival in the US as if arriving on a domestic flight.

 

If both flights are booked on one ticket then I believe you do not need to go through Canadian I/C on arrival as you are just transiting Canada.  You would go straight to US I/C and clear that, then proceed through security and to your gate.  One hour would be, as everyone has already said, most likely not enough time, especially if you are seated anywhere but the very front of the plane and have to wait your turn to deplane.

If the cruiseline (or you) has cobbled together 2 separate tickets then you may need to actually "arrive" in Canada, meaning go through Canadian I/C, then proceed to the airline ticketing desk to check in and check bags for the 2nd airline/flight, then security and on to the gate.  One hour is almost certainly not enough time if it's the aforementioned single ticket and essentially guaranteed to not even be close to enough time if it's two separate tickets.

 

If you'll come back and provide details of exactly how the flights were booked, folks here can give you more specific help as to what your options may be!

Edited by waterbug123
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we booked the flight using Princess' EZ Air - using EZ Air allows us to easily change the flight.  I do not see a 13 digit number on Princess or Air Canada's documents.

 

Thanks for all the insight on the customs process - obviously we've never flown back to the USA via Canada!!

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23 minutes ago, FTLcruisers said:

we booked the flight using Princess' EZ Air - using EZ Air allows us to easily change the flight.  I do not see a 13 digit number on Princess or Air Canada's documents.

 

 

I guess we'll see how easy it is, because I definitely recommend asking for a change. Odds are you don't actually have tickets, and won't for a long time.

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32 minutes ago, FTLcruisers said:

we booked the flight using Princess' EZ Air - using EZ Air allows us to easily change the flight. 

 

Presumably you can at least see the flight numbers and times? Are you prepared to share those with us? At the moment, none of us has found any flights that match your description.

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2 hours ago, Globaliser said:

 

Presumably you can at least see the flight numbers and times? Are you prepared to share those with us? At the moment, none of us has found any flights that match your description.

I realized after I posted that we wouldn't have ticket #s yet since the flight doesn't get paid for until we pay for our cruise which won't be until Dec!  In any case, we're changing our flights.  but for you curious ones,  flights were Air Canada #893 @ 11:50 AM then flight #1606 @ 4:15PM.  When I was originally looking at flights on EZAir, there were several other flights with those exact times using a various combination of airlines. 

 

BTW my TA wasn't 100% sure about customs in Montreal - another reason I love CC so much.  thanks again to everyone who responded. 

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26 minutes ago, FTLcruisers said:

When I was originally looking at flights on EZAir, there were several other flights with those exact times using a various combination of airlines. 

 

 

If the times were exactly the same, most likely they were code share flights....meaning there was only ONE actual flight, with several partner airlines all selling ticket on the exact same flight/aircraft.  Each airline assigns their own flight number to the flight but they aren't actually multiple different flights.

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11 minutes ago, waterbug123 said:

 

If the times were exactly the same, most likely they were code share flights....meaning there was only ONE actual flight, with several partner airlines all selling ticket on the exact same flight/aircraft.  Each airline assigns their own flight number to the flight but they aren't actually multiple different flights.

 

They definitely pack those codeshare numbers on to a flight like this. For today's flight, Air Canada 893 is also known as Lufthansa 6706, Croatia Airlines 5946, Brussels Airlines 9619, and United 8615. I'm surprised there aren't more European Star Alliance airlines with their number on there too, frankly.

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5 hours ago, VMax1700 said:

Does OP need to have eTA to transit Canada or are (presumed) US citizens exempt?

This depends on who they end up flying with! Some airlines (Air Canada is one) allow you to skip the Canadian immigration part, and head straight for US preclearance with your bags also going straight between planes; others require collection of bags,  entry to Canada with all normal Visa/eTA rules applying, then also doing US preclearance! YUL's official website offers zilch in the way of guidance as to which will apply unfortunately (YVR & YYZ have excellent transfer guidance, enabling you to plug your flight details in and see exactly what will happen and where you need to go, but YULs hasn't been updated in quite some time).

 

US citizens don't need an eTA in either situation, but there's no way I'd want to go through both sets of immigration/customs in just an hour... fortunately OP seems to be altering their plans 😉  And yes, Air Canada int'l flights can be a hassle if you're trying to find them quickly on a board - as they rotate through flight number after flight number of all the codeshares!!!!

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13 hours ago, FTLcruisers said:

but for you curious ones,  flights were Air Canada #893 @ 11:50 AM then flight #1606 @ 4:15PM.

 

That would have given you 1:35 between flights (1440 arrival, 1615 departure), which is considerably more than the "a little over 1 hour layover" you mentioned in your original post. In other words, it was 95 minutes versus an official Minimum Connection Time of 70 minutes (at which the airline still expects that most, but not all, passengers will make it to their next flight).

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On 6/12/2019 at 3:06 PM, FTLcruisers said:

I realized after I posted that we wouldn't have ticket #s yet since the flight doesn't get paid for until we pay for our cruise which won't be until Dec!  In any case, we're changing our flights.  but for you curious ones,  flights were Air Canada #893 @ 11:50 AM then flight #1606 @ 4:15PM.  When I was originally looking at flights on EZAir, there were several other flights with those exact times using a various combination of airlines. 

 

BTW my TA wasn't 100% sure about customs in Montreal - another reason I love CC so much.  thanks again to everyone who responded. 


If your TA doesn't know something so basic as pre-clearing CBP in the eight major US gateway airports in Canada, it's time for a new travel agent.

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1 hour ago, ducklite said:


If your TA doesn't know something so basic as pre-clearing CBP in the eight major US gateway airports in Canada, it's time for a new travel agent.

 

My thoughts too.  I wouldn't expect a TA to know every little idiosyncrasy of every possible travel itinerary, but this is pretty basic knowledge that I would expect a travel professional to be familiar with.

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5 hours ago, ducklite said:

If your TA doesn't know something so basic as pre-clearing CBP in the eight major US gateway airports in Canada, it's time for a new travel agent.

 

DING DING DING....winner of the post of the week award (and it's only Tuesday).

 

FTL - you don't have a travel agent, you have an order taker.  Now there is nothing wrong with that - just understand what you are getting and what level of service to expect.

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28 minutes ago, victory2020 said:

This answered my initial question but has anyone had experience with Air Canada ROUGE? I have no idea what this is & I thought I was booking Air Canada. It's too late to switch flights.


Rouge is an arm of Air Canada.

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12 hours ago, victory2020 said:

Yes, my impression is that it is a budget no frills flight. I was hoping someone has had experience flying with them.

 

I don't have any personal experience with them. Friend of mine flew them to and from, I believe, Lyon on their 767-300ER. Said the planes were a bit run down. Economy seating was tight - pitch appears to be 30" for Economy, with 17.5" width (to compare, most North American airlines are giving 31-32" pitch with a similar width, though some are narrower). He knew what he was getting in to and it was fine, but he said he wouldn't do it again except for the fact that it was relatively cheap (of course) and helped him avoid connecting at CDG.

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Rouge is indeed the no-frills version of Air Canada - there is nothing more annoying when you book a 'real AC' flight and then the b*ggers change it to a Rouge one, as no refunds for the loss of seat comfort (thinner, less padded), legroom (an inch or two less than in regular economy as mentioned above) and service (fewer flight attendants per plane so overworked despite worse pay as the contracts with the 'new company' Rouge did not include all the same benefits and pay scales as existing AC staff had, thus generally more surly on average).

 

In short, I would never fly Rouge on anything more than a short-haul, despite one of their first routes being superbly convenient for me to visit family back home in Scotland as it went Toronto-Edinburgh non-stop. WestJet - despite a generally much older fleet - would be preferable (heck, for a wedding this August I'm flying back Air Transat economy rather than using Rouge!!!)

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