Originally Posted by
lax01
So I transferred at CDG (from LAX) from AF to AF so this might be a little different....went from 2E to 2F and then 2F to 2E (on return flight) - it was not a ton of time but it was doable
The one thing I was worrying about (which I fortunately didn't have to actually face) was if the incoming flight was delayed 30 minutes (or more), it would be have been extremely tight.
There was also additional security when transferring back to US-bound flight which I wasn't expecting...we had Sky Priority though so I didn't really sweat it - we still board the flight with plenty of time to spare
My recent transfer from DL in 2E to AF at 2F seemingly was uneventful, but apparently my luggage didn't have the same experience. Landed precisely on-time from LAX at a remote gate stand (and I mean remote, it was a 12 minute drive to the terminal at a good clip of speed), and we were in the first bus leaving the plane. At that point I had a 80 minute theoretical window to make my connection, and it turned out that the flight out of 2F ended up boarding 15 minutes late.
Actual time from getting on the bus to being at the 2F gate (with Sky Priority) was 38 minutes.
When I arrived at the BUD baggage claim about 11:40am, after about five minutes I got two emails from AF that my luggage (each referencing a different bag tag number) did not make the flight. Went to the baggage desk (which is manned by a Malev contractor) and the woman seemed to already know that there we a number of Air France passengers with miss-connected luggage. She was efficient at filing our paperwork but indicated it looked like the bags wouldn't land until 23:35. This I found curious, since AF had another flight arriving at 19:30.
Checked the Malev contractor's website on and off during the day, and there was no status changes. Finally at 21:15 I received an email from Air France that one of my two bags was loaded on a flight, but the tag number for the second bag wasn't memorialized. Tried a few times to call local Budapest numbers for the contractor that I found, but no one answered. Decided to call AF's baggage number in the US (there turned out to be about a 15 minute hold queue), and the CSR could not offer any more detail. She said until they scanned the bag tags coming off the plane in BUD, we wouldn't know if the second bag made the flight. The rep did say the single email scenario I offered is something she encountered often, and almost always multiple bags actually make it.
At 23:50 I got an email that
two bags had arrived at the airport. Told the hotel front desk to please call me when they arrived, and was a bit perturbed (albeit not at the front desk) that the wake up call was at 02:35am.
Bottom line after all that exposition, an 85 minute scheduled 2E to 2F connection was certainly doable from my standpoint, but apparently AF's baggage handing operation feels otherwise. I'll chalk it off to the remote gate stand. How frequently a DL 777 ends up at a remote stand is for others to comment.