Originally Posted by
talbyant
Ok, BHM-ATL-GCM in March (spring break week) with a 7 year old and 50 minutes? Flights are very early on a Saturday morning. Leave BHM at 5:30 AM, into ATL at 7:26, and then to GCM at 8:20. Guessing into A/B terminal and out of E. Thoughts? Also, if going to attempt to change, should I call in to Delta, or try my luck with a SkyClub agent?
Only problem with a tight connection on the crack of dawn flights out of BHM is that if there is weather the night before, and the inbound's are delayed that night, the early outbound's are frequently delayed due to the crew not having 8 hours rest in yet (or whatever the current min is)
Originally Posted by
RobertS975
The only way to better your situation is to come into ATL the night before and stay overnight at an airport hotel at your expense. And you would have to claim your checked luggage and re-check it the next morning.
From BHM, you might as well drive to ATL, (depending on how far you are driving to get to BHM) but if you do something like this during spring break, I would advise arriving very early to check in, especially without status. My last DL flights without status several years ago were supposed to be BHM-ATL-ICN-PVG on a Friday. BHM-ATL was severely delayed due to runway issues in ATL, causing missed connection. In BHM, decided to stick it out and spend night in ATL instead of risking a similar short connection off the early flight to catch the then new ATL-PVG direct flight. Got to ATL 3 hours before my flight, 3 hours later fighting through the madhouse of ATL first day of Georgia Spring break, I got to the front of the line to check in!
OP might have different luck, as GCM would probably allow kiosk check-in with a passport swipe, and PVG required verification of the Chinese visa, but it certainly made me glad to not have to check in at ATL often. (Arrived at 3:45 AM the next morning to check in for the 9:45 flight (all other options oversold, first day of spring break!), and STILL waited 45 minutes in line to check in!)