Commercial Fixed Wing
Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP); Flight Crew Instrument; Flight Crew Multiengine
Distraction
Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy; Ground Event / Encounter Other / Unknown
General None Reported / Taken
Environment - Non Weather Related; Human Factors
After a successful CAT III landing; we had crossed the two inboard runways and were taxiing north on taxiway towards gate. The FO; who was on the first trip back after one month off; did the after landing flow and confirmed our gate with operations. I thought we were cleared into the gate via spot; but this was not the case.As we were rounding the corner for spot and passing Aircraft Y that was on the line just south of spot; I confirmed with the FO that we were indeed cleared in as I had been distracted switching from low vis taxi diagrams to normal taxi diagrams as the vis was very good; shutting down the Number 2 engine; in addition to the fact that the FO was a soft spoken person. I only mention this as I wasn't surprised I hadn't heard them confirm our clearance to taxi into the gate as I was busy concentrating on the other threats just discussed.As rampers were visible from spot and were marshaling us into the gate; we pulled into the gate normally. Approximately 20 feet short of our final parking spot ground reminded us to contact ramp. We immediately contacted ramp; who was understandably very unhappy with us and we apologized for our error.Needless to say; I take complete responsibility for this incident and am embarrassed I allowed it to happen. I have learned a couple of things from this incident- first; that I need to be extra vigilant when some crew members don't have a lot of recent experience; secondly; when we had discussed that the ground ops were our biggest threat for this CAT III approach; I need to truly take it to heart and be extra cautious to help mitigate the threats present during this segment of our flight.
Air carrier Captain reported being distracted and not contacting the ramp before taxiing to the gate.