US Airways Dividend Miles (Pre-FlightFund Merger) - Enuff?

Do you think this is a enuff time connection? based on your experience in PHL and their delays and amount of time walking. Since they usually board the international flight abit earlier or?

US 4451
Leaving ROA 15:30
Arrive PHL 16:55 Terminal F

LH 427
Leave PHL 18:05 Terminal A
Arrive FRA 07:50

You've got about 70 min. It should be enough. Take the shuttle bus from F to C, then take the moving walkways across to B. Hang a right, and go to A. I think there are even moving walkways between B and A (only been in A once, so I don't remember).

Still, 70 min should be more than enough time.

I think there are even moving walkways between B and A (only been in A once, so I don't remember).



Yes there are. And yes, you have time but don't stop for shopping or food!

i would, as others have suggested, make my way directly to the LH gate. you are lucky, in that LH uses one of the first gates in A-West (a-15 or a-16, i forget), so you dont have to hike 1/2 to Delaware towards the A20s...

Yes there are. And yes, you have time but don't stop for shopping or food!

Not even for a good Philly cheesesteak on hoagie???
:p ;) :D

Not even for a good Philly cheesesteak on hoagie???
:p ;) :D

No ma'am!

No ma'am!

aw crap man! :p what if I ran and pushed everyone outta my path?? Would that shave some time off?? :D Just kidding... thanks for the info tho :)

aw crap man! :p what if I ran and pushed everyone outta my path?? Would that shave some time off?? :D Just kidding... thanks for the info tho :)

You might just make friends with the hospitable folks of TSA. Try not to look like you're running away from a bag left unattended!

Im serious here, on an international connection that maybe only has 1 flight a day I would leave 3 hours at PHL minimum, and would prefer 4. If your flight is 30 minutes late you are in some trouble here, and if you are an hour late you are toast. I would not count on arriving in PHL less than an hour late.

Im serious here, on an international connection that maybe only has 1 flight a day I would leave 3 hours at PHL minimum, and would prefer 4. If your flight is 30 minutes late you are in some trouble here, and if you are an hour late you are toast. I would not count on arriving in PHL less than an hour late.

Yikes! A 4 hour connection? Are you nutty? The flight itself isn't much longer than that! Luckily for the OP, there is a later flight to FRA.

I normally do a connection of an hour and a half (on the outbound). Other than my baggage not always coming through I have yet to have an issue (although I have been rerouted on another carrier to PHL when they knew my original flight was going to be delayed to ensure that I made my overseas connection). My baggage has also been rerouted on a later flight to another city in Europe and then on to my final destination, so there's no reason that if I had misconnected, they couldn't do that to me.

Yikes! A 4 hour connection? Are you nutty? The flight itself isn't much longer than that! Luckily for the OP, there is a later flight to FRA.

I normally do a connection of an hour and a half (on the outbound). Other than my baggage not always coming through I have yet to have an issue (although I have been rerouted on another carrier to PHL when they knew my original flight was going to be delayed to ensure that I made my overseas connection). My baggage has also been rerouted on a later flight to another city in Europe and then on to my final destination, so there's no reason that if I had misconnected, they couldn't do that to me.

You're right, maybe 3 hours is enough but I would be nervous. With a later flight maybe I would be comfortable with less. But it would depend. Am I upgraded on my original flight and if I took the later one would I be upgraded? Plus as you point out, even at 90 minutes connecting you have had problems. I absolute dont think 70 minutes is enough. Am I nutty, perhaps, but I dont think my response is based on that, but rather flying an awful lot of segments through PHL before I gave up on it.

I always schedule 2.5-4 hours for a PHL international connection on the outbound leg, just to make sure I don't have problems. More often than not my arrival to PHL has been late and I've needed some of that spare time booked in. When I get there early then I head to the Envoy club if I'm upgraded or one of the other Clubs if I have a day pass. There have been so many delays that I've had to deal with getting to PHL that I'm not willing to risk the outbound leg of a trip to potentially save the extra time.

You don't have what day it is, but the 5pm timeframe is when I've had the worst delays and connection problems. I'd watch the flights coming into ROA and make sure they seem to be arriving on time so you can leave on time. If it's late getting to PHL at all, you have a good chance of checked luggage not making it through. I make it a habit to not check luggage if at all possible, but then that means you'll have more to carry if you end up having to run to your gate in A after getting the shuttle bus. According to the map here:

http://www.usairways.com/travel/maps/terminal/phl.htm

there's a shuttle that should take you from F10 to A1 (it's a fake gate for the bus between A and B).

I don't want to rain on your parade -- just plan on things to go wrong and if they don't then it's an improvement from your expectations.

70 minutes for international makes me uncomfortable personally, but i'm the type that prints my boarding pass on line and still shows up 90 minutes ahead of time. Everyone tells me I'm not a good guage of realistic waits.

I am reminded of a story of my own PHL connection. In February, 2001, we were flying BWI-PHL-LAX, with an overnight stay, connecting to QF to Sydney.

I chose an even earlier connection than we needed, just to be sure. I felt that sitting in the club for two extra hours was better than worrying. Keep in mind that from Baltimore, we almost could have bicycled the 80 miles from our home to Philly. Nonetheless, we booked the award out of BWI, and that's where we started.

The first snowstorm of more than an inch or two hit us that day, dumping two feet of snow. We were stuck on I-95 for two hours due to accidents, and I watched our first flight's time pass. Actually, our departure flight was now going to be 3 hours late to PHL.

I called US and asked if we could drop our BWI-PHL segment, which, given the weather and a very friendly and empathetic CP agent, they were willing to do. We jumped on Amtrak and then into a nightmarish cab ride, making it to PHL with about 40 minutes to spare for our flight to LA. No delay had been posted. After all that rushing, our PHL-LAX flight, originally scheduled for 6PM, left at about 1:15AM, though no delay was EVER posted on the monitor. We arrived in LA in time to spend about 4 hours at our Hilton room before heading to our flight to Sydney.

The funny thing is....my partner and I both say that this particular flight, a 757 from PHL-LAX, delayed over 7 hours, was perhaps one of the best of any US Airways flights we ever took. The crew - God bless them - served meals as though it were 6PM, and it seemed as though they never sat down. They even announced the showing of a second movie since we had enough time in the flight.

Forgive my rambling.

On the day of the departure from ROA, if I see that there are any delays at Philly, I will go to the airport and standby for an earlier flight at 12:55 pm instead of 3:30 pm to give me more connection time. The agent on the phone said that the 12:55 pm flight is still wide open.

Never leave less than 2.5-4 hours for a PHL international connection, especially one that only has 1x flight/day. I have learned the hard way on this.

I've been told (not having done it lately) that a similar strategy should be employed for domestic connections. Got a 2 hour jaunt in PHL in a few days, we'll see how that holds up.