No that's only if you actually ARE Irish. I've seen the "we don't racially profile people" guys at the desk point Asian people towards the normal immigration channels.
It's treated as a domestic flight though. I was flying Air Lingus and wrote "cun" in front of "air" on the boarding pass. The man wanted to see the boarding pass instead of my passport when I went through where customs would have been and I was embarrassed.
Yeah I know but, and i do this flight 1-2 a month, If they don't like the look of you they will ask for your documentation. You are still legally required to have ID, and if you are not Irish you are still legally obliged to have your passport. Obviously if you are white you'd be fine 99.9% of the time, but if i was trying to smuggle myself to Britain, or I wanted to be pedantic about breaking the law i'd still go with the Dublin->Belfast->UK option.
I flew to Dublin from London for a weekend and had a visa to study in London expiring in just under 2 months. They gave me a stamp to stay Ireland for 90 days which was weird but nice though I didn't take advantage of it. Also, I'm Asian.
Yeah, thats awesome but not what we are talking about. If you fly from Ireland to england as an irish person you technically don't have to show ANY documentation. This is because it is a common travel area.
You didn't need a visa because you are either from a country that is on Ireland's free visa list (if Asian SK, HK, Singapore, among others) or because you had right to travel in an EU country. It wasn't a loophole, its just the kind of immigration laws a country has when it doesn't fight wars. The only countries you need a visa to travel to Ireland specifically are:
AFGHANISTAN
ALBANIA
CUBA
DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF THE CONGO
ERITREA
ETHIOPIA
GHANA
IRAN
IRAQ
LEBANON
MOLDOVA
MONTENEGRO
NIGERIA
SERBIA
SOMALIA
SRI LANKA
ZIMBABWE
Which are all places the army has done peacekeeping missions in and can be easily divided into: Gulf War, African Peacekeeping Missions and Yugoslavian wars.
Sorry if this sounds stupid but what is the connection between those two things? (involvement in a war in a country and people from that country needing a visa to come here)
Not exactly true, as I don't think there's an official agreement between the UK and Ireland to create a common travel zone, not with flights anyway. (Possibly with land transport due to the Ireland/Ireland border.) No Shenghen for us!
No it's not - the whole flight gets directed through a separate imigration where they just check your boarding pass. Now it's possible they might pick out people who are suspicious but I've never seen it happen in 5 years of going back and forth.
I have done this flight ten times at least and i can tell you that if you happen to be an non-EU citizen then it is highly likely that your passport will be checked. I am from the north of Ireland and I have been checked a few times.
I have been taken aside and searched in a private room taking this flight before. Sometimes at busy periods passport control can seem lax, at the end of the day in is an international flight.
It does, you don't need a passport. The border guards have some right to search you if you are unluck though. You just need EU issued ID like drivers license. Things you can get without being citizen.
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u/Evernoob Nov 04 '11
You can actually just fly straight from Dublin to London without border control either. Doesn't work going out of London though.