Originally Posted by
vsevolod4
That, however, is the key point. Any halfway-experienced road warrier would find the above itinerary to be reasonable and have coping mechanisms and backup plans just in case. But if the Mrs. is not an experienced traveler, then it might be Harrowing. Far better to schedule a longer layover in Heathrow, so she can go Harroding.
A 35-minute connection at IAD is really tight. There are so many factors that could cause a misconnect, not the least of which is the fact that the gates for the big birds are at the low D's and the low C's. If the SFO flight comes into D5, but the Heathrow flight is at C2, that adds a 5-10 minute run to the process.
Is Mrs. aerokitty willing or able to try a SFO-IAD standby earlier in the day? There's a 767 leaving SFO at 7:50 that gets into IAD at 3:58. If she's traveling mid-week, it might be worth a try. Also, there are two other IAD-LHR flights in the evening, so if she misses the first one, she has a crack at the other two. All of these contingencies have "nightmare" written all over them, particularly since there's a connection in LHR. And if she doesn't have elite status, standing by is more risky.
What does Mrs. aerokitty want to do? How much does she know about standing by?