Well, passed through Shannon last Sat. Warning!!!! You will realy need to prepare ahead for immigration and customs clearence.
I checked in online. So did not use check in desk at airport.
Went looking for immigration - customs form, Immigration-Customs area in departure area closed. No other US bound flights due that day so unlikly to open. Anyway, thought no more about it, though it would have been nice to use some of the two hour wait getting the forms filled in.
Boarded flight, at about half hour out of JFK, when no forms had been handed out by cabin crew, I asked for forms. Hey, cabin crew do not issue these forms. You get them at the check desk. Thats a nice little gap in their planning, check in online and there is no warning that you will need to collect forms at a check in desk.
However, it gets better (worse). Check in did not have the forms on that Sat (or not enough). Cabin crew told me there were a lot of passengers looking for forms, who had been told by check in that forms would be issued by cabin crew.
Anyway, cabin crew was great (going to miss the standard when AerLingus dumb down cabin crew to RyanAir standard). We had a connecting flight with JetBlue (2.5 hours), hostess said that a lot of AerLingus passengers were missing their JetBlue connections because of delays at immigration since AerLingus opted out.
She managed to get two forms (immigration only so at least we got them filled in on the aircraft.
She also got us off the aircraft first. Well done to that hostess.
Rushed down to immigration, one of the first from the AerLingus flight. All gates open, about one aisle of a queu. Took us about twent min to get to a immigration desk. In the meantime, an Emirates flight had landed and the aisles quickly filled up, so that the ¨slower¨ AierLingus passengers were finding some big queus forming by the time t6hey got to the immigration hall.
One last point. You cannot fill in the custom´s for in the customs hall.
You must have it filled in when you present yourself to the immigration officer. I was turned back and had to fill in the custom´s for andf present myself again. I was luckly, my wife held our place at the immigration gate while I went to the back of the immigration hall and filled in the form, so we only lost about 5 min. On you own, bags could not have left to mark your spot and you may have had to join the main queu again, which had grown considerably at that stage.
So AerLingus. You might as well drop the trans atlantic now. As more people learn how you treat US bound passengers, more will avoid AerLingus like the plague. Of course, this may well be your plan. Lose more passengers, make the route more unprofitable and your case for dropping the route is easier to make.
Footnote. Not varified, but staff on flight told me it cost US Immigration charge 10 euro per passenger to use preclearence.
I would pay it. Willingly.