Originally Posted by
marktelefono
My wife are flying from LAX – DUS on Airberlin business class. We have checked bags. At DUS we will be taking a separately booked flight on Airfrance from DUS – CDG. I have approximately 1 hour and 20 minutes between flights. I’ve read this thread and based on that, it seems my steps are as follows
1) Exit the Airberlin flight and go through passport control
2) Claim my bags at the baggage claim area
3) Proceed upstairs to departures
4) Go to the Airfrance desk and check in my bags (it seems to be terminal b)
5) Go through security
6) Proceed to the gate for my AF flight
Does this sound about right?
Any tips to quicken the process?
thanks
I think you are potentially setting yourself up for an expensive lesson in booking separate tickets.
DUS is an easy airport to navigate and connect at, and 1h20 is certainly feasible in many cases. However:
- you are on an international flight which can be early or late, often by a greater margin than shorter hops,
- you are arriving at a busy time and will be in a slower passport queue,
- you will have to wait for luggage, and
- you need to be checked in for your AF flight ca 40 mins before departure
You will be aware that if you miss your AF flight, the return segment of that will automatically be cancelled and you will have no recourse, you'll have to buy a new return ticket. There is no chance that LAX will through-check a bag across different tickets and alliances.
Let me put it a different way. I assume your 1h20 is the time between scheduled arrival (wheels down) and departure of the next flight. Assuming wheels-down is on time, you can expect, in a perfect world:
- 10 minutes to gate,
- 5 minutes to disembark,
- 10 minutes to wait and go through immigration,
- 15 minutes to wait for bags, and
- 5 minutes to get up to the AF desks
You've just blown 45 minutes of your 80 minutes, leaving you 35 minutes from check-in to the next flight. My guess is on these times you're 50/50 from being allowed to check in. I wouldn't risk this, book a letter AF flight.