Originally Posted by
SDQBound
I have not connected from Schengen to International for quite some years. I'm currently in the dilemma of choosing a MAD- CDG - IAD flight with 1:05 connection time, or a MAD-ATL-DCA flight with 2 hours to connect. Any recent experiences with such short connections at CDG especially when there's a security check for US-bound flights before boarding the flight at CDG?
The advantage of connecting through CDG is that I will have one less security checkpoint to worry about and will arrive 1.5 hours earlier (but this time can be consumed between the mobile lounge, immigration, and traffic to DC.
From my experience, there isn't any real "security check" per se for US bound flights except at the boarding gate to the US flight, where you may be randomly brought aside and asked a couple questions- but I wasn't one of those asked any add'l questions.
The ability to hit that connection will depend heavily an a timely inbound MAD-CDG flight. As an extreme datapoint : I had a 1h20 scheduled connection time FRA-CDG-IAD back in September connecting from 2G to 2E (M Gates, A380) that shrank to 20mn (yes, 20) because my Hop ! flight from FRA had to taxi back to the terminal at origin and ended up arriving 1h late at CDG. I wasn't supposed to be able to make it, but the customs control at 2G was quick, the navette arrived in 5mn, I had no checked bags, and I dashed my way thru 2E.......and the correspondance to IAD boarded 20mn late (luck).
My opinion would be to stick to the shorter connection time and if things go wrong, AF has to rebook you anyway so worst case, you end up on the ATL connection assuming it occurs later than the original one.