Originally Posted by
Nanook
Well, thanks for all the responses. The reason I asked seemed logical to me, but you didn't have enough information so, of course, you wondered why the heck I wanted to know. Here's why:
We live five hours from DFW. We have to drive to Dallas and are going to check into a hotel in downtown Dallas (it's a long story) and then take a town car from downtown Dallas to DFW to pick M-i-L up. We had to give the car service her flight info, and since we're paying an hourly rate, we didn't want to have the town car just sitting there with the "meter" ticking, as it were. That's why we don't want to be too early. The reason we don't want to arrive too late is that she doesn't speak English (and is not from Germany, but a small town in Austria.)
IME, car services monitor arrivals/departures quite carefully and will be well aware of your the actual arrival time of the flight. As noted, online flight tracking will give you a very good estimate (barring of course, delays/interruptions noted above).
A couple of other ways to monitor her progress: Set an arrival notification alert to your cell phone. Also, does she have a US-enabled cell phone? If so, have her call you the minute she lands. She won't be able to use the phone in the immigration area; but you should guestimate 30 to 45 minutes from the time of the phone call to the time she will exit the secure area; slightly less if she is flying in a premium cabin and doesn't have checked bags.