Originally Posted by
ScruttonStreet
Master Scrutton Street is about to fly Melbourne-DFW-Mexico City. MEL-DFW is Qantas metal, AA flight number. DFW-MEX is AA metal and AA flight number. All on one ticket. He will have one checked bag. The connection time at DFW is 2 hours, which feels 'optimistic.'
I have some questions for which I would appreciate your help.
* At Melbourne, I assume he should be given both boarding passes?
* At Melbourne, I assume his bags will be through-tagged to MEX, but he will have to pick them up at DFW and recheck them there?
* At DFW, will the flow be: land - clear immigration - pick up bag - clear customs - recheck his bags at an AA desk, picking up a boarding pass if he didn't get one at MEL - go to gate?
* In the event of a misconnect, will it be up to Qantas to sort him out, or will AA in practice be able to do it?
* Finally, if the misconnect involves an overnight, will AA or Qantas pay for a hotel for him (and if so who?). If not, it would be one for travel insurance I guess.
Thanks much
* At Melbourne, I assume he should be given both boarding passes? - yes they should give him both boarding passes at Melbourne. If for some reason they are unable to, after he exits customs, there is a kiosk where he can reprint boarding passes just past the luggage drop off point.
* At Melbourne, I assume his bags will be through-tagged to MEX, but he will have to pick them up at DFW and recheck them there? - Yes his bags should be tagged all the way through to MEX. At check-in, he should ask if they will be tagged ITI, which means that he wouldn't have to collect them at DFW and drop them back off.
* At DFW, will the flow be: land - clear immigration - pick up bag - clear customs - recheck his bags at an AA desk, picking up a boarding pass if he didn't get one at MEL - go to gate? - It will be land, clear immigration, if his bags weren't tagged ITI claim bags, exit, turn to the left drop off bags at the belt, continue a few steps onwards towards the AA counters/kiosk where he can pick up a boarding pass if needed, around the corner, and then up the escalators, reclear security, and then to his gate. His onward flight can be from A, B, C, or D so he can take the SkyLink after clearing security to get to his gate. If the security at the top of the escalator is backed up, tell him to continue walking around to the left past the escalators/elevators to the Grand Hyatt, and walk to the next security checkpoint
2 hours is plenty of time for this. If a hotel is needed, it will depend on the reason for the misconnect whether it's covered. Same with reaccommodation, it's generally dependent on which airline caused the delay.