Originally Posted by
Eastbay1K
I doubt any airline would fly you to Chile without having physically reviewed your passport. I've been paged at the gate for various reasons (such as connecting on another airline and they've not seen my passport, or proof of onward travel if my ticket doesn't show onward travel). I don't think transit security is a bottleneck, although I've never taken that route.
If everything is on time, I still think you're hosed. Others may differ. I'd not risk this on separate tickets.
Originally Posted by
Marambio
I'm not sure the VIP service covers your scenario. If you are a Skyteam Platinum, could you call KL and ask them to make a note on your booking so that staff at the gate wait for you? I've seen that work in the past. KL will definitely want to do a passport check at the gate in my experience but this shouldn't take more than a second.
I am also of the opinion that this is too tight, but please let us know how it worked in the end!
To follow up on whether the connection worked or not...
Flew it yesterday/today.
LH510 left FRA kinda on time and we arrived in EZE at 07:36 am local time (07:55 scheduled arrival). Then approx. 20 Minutes of taxi & airbridge manoevering. So we left the LH510 at 07:55 sharp. KL701 was marked on time, i.e. gate closure expected to be 08:25.
While inflight on LH510, I asked the purser, whether there is anything LH could do, helping us to make that connection. She sent our flight details and the details of the KL flight (different ticket, different alliance!) to the First Class Service team, asking for ground support in EZE. Before landing, she informed me a dedicated LH rep would pick us up. Very nice, but turned out to be rather useless...
Speeding towards transit security (LH rep couldn't/didn't want to match our speed), just to see that it was completely empty.
Passport check took 3 minutes, the security control 1 minute and then another few minutes walk to gate 10. Boarding hasn't had started and we were actually first in boarding zone 1.
All in all, it took 10 minutes from exiting LH510 until arriving at the gate of KL701. Quite happy that it worked out so well. Important was that LH510 left FRA on time, we flew F (deboarding as very first pax) and that the transfer security was empty.