Originally Posted by
WillBarrett_68
A 40 minute connection in ATL is not "aspirational" - it's completely normal. If "50%" of 40 minute connections were resulting in misconnect, they would be changing the MCT.
I book 35-40 minute connections in ATL all the time, and the last time I misconnected was 2015 - and in that case it was a WX irop, and my original connection was over an hour.
The idea that these are insanely dangerous connections is simply ridiculous. Delta has no interest in booking unrealistic connections, as this is effectively spoiling their perishable inventory. MCTs are set with this in mind.
1) their flight arrival time isn’t realistic. This route averages over 2 hours and 30 minutes and it’s scheduled duration is 2 hours 15 minutes It’s 2 hours just in the air. Only about 10% of their flights take 2.25 hours or less. In this case, the original connection time was cut by 50% by a post hoc schedule change. After the initial schedule change the layover was below the MCT which would have meant an automatic refund. But then Delta decided to shave 10 minutes off the scheduled flight time and the MCT was legal. Totally legit!
2) even if the arrival flight goes *perfectly* (which never happens with pandemic-era Delta in our experience), they will have at most 20-25 minutes to deplane, walk through B or C concourse to the plane train, wait for the plane train, board the plain train, ride the plane train to the international concourse, and then walk from the plane train to their gate.
3) and even then they have to *hope* Delta hasn’t already given their seats to Standby passengers. Or that the gate hasn’t been closed. This is an international flight and they are typically in a rush to get those away ASAP. Delta typically closes the gate at least 15-20 minutes before scheduled departure time for international flights. The average gate departure time for the connecting flight is 8-10 minutes before scheduled departure time. Which means the gate closes 20 minutes before scheduled departure.
4) and that is the best case scenario, assuming not a minute is wasted at any point with perfect ground and air conditions. No delays in loading baggage, no mechanical issues, flight crew ready to go, etc.
5) airlines don’t care if you make your connection, they just want your money. If you have to fly standby 2 days later, they’re okay with that. They already have your money. They’ve pulled this on us before—changed the connection time to something utterly unrealistic (40 minutes in DTW over the winter holidays with an arrival from MSP) and then just booked us on the next day’s flight rather than hold the connecting flight to a regional airport 10 minutes. We managed to get booked at a flight later that day for an airport 50 miles from the original destination but we were fortunate to have that option. (Of course our bags never made that flight despite the fact they had 8 hours to load them). Others were being told by Delta they’d have to sleep in the airport because they missed their connections. See also point (1) above.
6) I think expecting Delta to do everything perfectly counts as aspirational. You really disagree with that?