Washington D.C. (including Baltimore) - Connection through IAD

I have a YYZ-IAD-MCO flight coming up in a little bit. It's a fairly tight connection ~45 minutes, but I've talked to some people and they said that is extremely do-able.

Makes sense, as we will clear US Customs in YYZ so just jump off the plane and go to our next gate. (The general consensus is it will take approx 15-25 mins to make the connection)

NOOOWWWW, the problem is... I don't want to get lost on my way to my next flight.

I'm looking at some trends and it appears that the flight into IAD usually lands at the A gates, and the outbound flight seems to religiously leave from the D gates (sometimes the C gates)

If it departs from C: great. No problem. We'll take the AeroTrain

The IAD terminal map shows that there is some "shuttle bus" from A to D... but "times vary" makes me very anxious as we are going to be running through IAD at approx 7:45am and I've heard how busy it is (and how long those shuttles can take)... I'm assuming this might be the best bet when compared to taking the Aerotrain to C and running to D?

I have a YYZ-IAD-MCO flight coming up in a little bit. It's a fairly tight connection ~45 minutes, but I've talked to some people and they said that is extremely do-able.

Makes sense, as we will clear US Customs in YYZ so just jump off the plane and go to our next gate. (The general consensus is it will take approx 15-25 mins to make the connection)

NOOOWWWW, the problem is... I don't want to get lost on my way to my next flight.

I'm looking at some trends and it appears that the flight into IAD usually lands at the A gates, and the outbound flight seems to religiously leave from the D gates (sometimes the C gates)

If it departs from C: great. No problem. We'll take the AeroTrain

The IAD terminal map shows that there is some "shuttle bus" from A to D... but "times vary" makes me very anxious as we are going to be running through IAD at approx 7:45am and I've heard how busy it is (and how long those shuttles can take)... I'm assuming this might be the best bet when compared to taking the Aerotrain to C and running to D?

Is it perchance a UA flight? I'm not sure where Air Canada flights come in.

In any event, the place where the shuttles leave is fairly close to the train station. If you happen to come in to gates A1-6 on UA, then you would in fact have to walk right past where the shuttle is to get to the train station - from A1-6, you go up a short escalator to a mezzanine where the shuttles leave, then up another escalator to go through a linkway (over where the shuttles used to go when there were more of them), and down the other side to the train station. Where the shuttle is, there will be a sign indicating how long until the next departure.

My feeling is, unless it is a really long time (more than ten minutes) until the next shuttle, that's your best bet. You have to keep walking to get to the train, then wait for the train to C, then it is a long walk from the station at C to the terminal (long story), and then a good walk through C to D.

It's been a while since I've been there (almost a year), so maybe there has been some reconfiguration. Also, if you are coming in on Air Canada or some other carrier, maybe optimal strategy would be different.

It's a United Express/Trans States Airlines. It looks like we are coming in on a smaller plane and have seats close to the door, so getting off shouldn't be a problem

Then unless things have changed, you're either coming to come into C/D (in which case walking is best), or you'll come into A1-6 and need to change to C/D.

It if were me coming in at A needing to change to D, I'd look at the electronic display showing how long until the next shuttle as I walked by. Unless it were really long, I'd take it. If it were 15 minutes or something like that, then I might keep walking a bit and take the train.

The configuration of A/B is a bit odd. It used to be that A was just six gates, all on one side of this bridge/walkway, then the other side was B. But now they have given a bunch of B gates new A numbers. But A1-6 are the "old" A, to get to the train you would walk right past the shuttle for D. And AFAIK, the only United flights to A would come into A1-6.

Sweet! Thanks!

I'm pretty used to bizzare airport set ups... YYZ has 2 terminals: Terminal 1 and Terminal 3. (Try wrapping your head around that one)

No trouble :)

I guess the other odd thing about A1-6 is that it's designed for all regional jets, so each "gate" is really a long corridor with a bunch of doors on either side. But if you are in good walking condition, I think that will add only a minute or two to your time :)