In October a good friend is flying to Rome for her 1st international trip. The American flight is scheduled to arrive at 7:45 in Terminal 3, and she will have to go through customs before going to Terminal 1 for a domestic ITA flight to Florence at 9:30. Is that sufficient time? Are there personnel to assist her in the transfer?

Moved ti Europe board and tagged for Italy. Ttitle rewritten to explain content.

She will not go through customs until she arrives in Florence. Immigration yes, customs no.

More important is whether or not she has checked bags. If yes then she has a big problem in that she’ll need to wait for baggage claim at FCO then get her bags over to ITA before their baggage cutoff time which might be 8:30 or 8:45.

I would not count on there being anyone to assist her.

Unless her first flight arrives 30 min or more early (unlikely) id say her chances of making it are slim to none.

if she only has carryon luggage then her chances are better. If she checks in with ITA before leaving home then she just needs to be ar the gate by 9:10 or 9:15, whenever the gate closing time is.

Thank you. She will only have carry-on, so it's a maybe.

When we changed planes in Rome to a domestic flight, they had a special desk for those continuing passengers to do their immigration, passport control.

Thank you, this is very helpful. Is there signage to direct her, or should she ask the gate agent when she deplanes so that she goes to the right location?

Welcome to Fodors. That is a pretty tights connection, but are both flights on the same reservation? If so, if she misses the domestic flight they will put her on the next available flight. If they were booked separately then it is much more difficult.

Fiumicino airport in Rome has a very efficient immigration procedure, mostly automated. I don't consider this a tight connection at that airport. I once got from touchdown to train station, including collecting luggage, in less than half an hour.

Of course, there's always the unpredictable, but, as Janis says, if the tickets are on a single itinerary, and you miss the connection, they'll just put you on the next flight. Otherwise, you're on your own. In this situation, if you miss the connection, you could take the train to Florence. It would probably be less expensive than a last-minute airfare, and not much slower, either, considering that the train arrives in the center of Florence.

Thank you! This is good info. She would be booked separately, so a train seems the safer booking.

At 9:42 and at 13:53, there are direct fast trains from Fiumicino airport to Florence. Otherwise, there are frequent direct connections from the airport to Termini station, and frequent fast trains from there to Florence. I myself usually buy these tickets on arrival, even though it costs more, because the cheapest advance purchase tickets are not flexible. If she does want to buy a ticket in advance, I would just buy the ticket from Termini station to Florence, paying more for a flexible ticket. You can buy the tickets from the airport to Termini station on the spot; there are no reserved seats on these trains. There are easy-to-use multilingual ticket machines in the airport station, which accept credit cards.