Quickest international connection stories at an AA hub?
 

This week I think I broke a personal record of connection time. I flew in on 729 from LHR-PHL on a 332 Monday. We were an HOUR early (side note, AA stop this BS ultra - padding of your flights to CYA it's ridiculous) . I walked off the plane at 2:55 and my connection to DFW wasn't until 6:09 PM but certainly didn't want to wait around for that amount of time. I saw a 4:50 and a 3:31 flight to DFW. I said to myself no way on the latter but thought the former was no brainer. I blew through customs/immigration and through security again and hiked it over to C28 by 3:15 and I was able to get accommodated on the 3:31 PM flight. I was also given 5E a great MCE bulk head on a dinosaur US Airways era 321. I had a confirmed F seat (award ticket) for the 6:09 flight but I was more concerned about getting home on time in lieu of AA operational deficiencies.
That 6:09 flight by the way? It was over 1.5 hours late into DFW lol

yeah padding is a bit much with some AA flight. i complain about it here before but I got a lot of backlash from people here since they compare it to traffic during rush hour which is bs. glad someone agrees with me here.

This was in the US Airways days, but I once made a CUN-PHL-DCA connection in 20 minutes.

Carry-on only, of course, but I did not have GE at this point.

CUN-PHL was delayed so it was: door opens in A-West --> immigration ---> customs ---> TSA PreCheck --> B ---> last person on board PHL-DCA, door closing behind me.

Folks can bash PHL all they want, but I to D connections can be faster there than just about anywhere, IF you have Global Entry and don't check bags. Since PHL is my home airport I rarely connect onwards (though I have in the past for work); though I once made a ~55 minute connection with a checked bag to retrieve going from A to F, but I had to gate-check the bag at F.

Yes. As was my case.

Was the 332 covering for a 333? I often see 332s sub for 333s on MAD and FCO flights, but rarely LHR.

My bad. It was a -300

Switching hubs - this past November I had a PEK-LAX-PHL itinerary that had a ~6 hour layover in LAX. In my experience the Asia - LAX flights arrive early if the winds are in your favor. Not wanting to spend 6 hours in LAX nor be on a red-eye to PHL, I bought myself a oneway LAX to PHL ticket on the last afternoon flight (3:15ish, I think). AA 180 is scheduled to land at 2:40, and it landed 35 minutes early. I was able to clear immigration and customs and get to T5 for the PHL flight before boarding started. (And yes, I still had the redeye ticketed. Either the software didn't catch the double booking or AA didn't care. I called EXP line and cancelled the redeye once I boarded the afternoon flight.)

Not that it matters for the story.... but man, the 333s are showing wear and tear.

Here’s a good one from last week. JFK-LAX-HKG, separate tickets, checked bag, and a delay putting me under MCT.

• JFK-LAX boarded on time
• We pushed back, aligned for takeoff, then turned back to the terminal to deplane as a “strong odor had been identified”
• Flight delayed 2.5h as a new a/c is found

I now have a 1h 10m connection at LAX. Because I’m on separate tickets, I’ll need to go to baggage claim + recheck my bag to HKG. International bag drop closes at T-1h, so I’ll have only ten minutes. Impossible.

• On landing at LAX, I sprinted down to the checkin hall, went to a kiosk, and printed a bag tag with 5m before bag drop closes
• Then I went to baggage claim, waited 20m for my bag
• Went back up to Flagship First Check-In, handed them my bag with the tag I printed myself before bag drop closed, and they surprisingly took it at T-35m

Went straight to gate 43 to board, got on, pushed back, aligned for takeoff ... and the crew timed out. Flight delayed until 1pm the next day. Didn’t get to my hotel until 3:30am. Next morning, stood standby on the 10am Cathay Pacific flight and got the last seat in F, so not a horribly bad story.

tldr made an impossible connection with a checked bag on separate tickets work only for the crew to time out.

I made a similar connection at JFK a number of years ago arriving from LHR and connecting on to DFW. Inbound from LHR was nearly 2 hours late leaving just about 30 minutes to transfer. Luckily I was sitting in 8A on the 77W so I was one of the first off and was through Global Entry and TSA Pre in about 10 minutes combined with some speed walking/running. Connection was a 763 and I was the last to board in F.

Had a flight from LAX to HKG on AA with a CX connection to DPS. Probably a 2+ hour layover, but the AA flight was delayed over an hour. Landed with less than an hour until the connecting flight. Booked it through security and all of the HKG gates and made it to the connecting flight 2 minutes before boarding even started.

Gate Agents were shocked and thought NOBODY was going to make it so they already gave my seat away and rebooked me on the next flight three hours later. I realized how fast I made the connection when the next person from the incoming flight I was on showed up at the gate after boarding was done.

One time I rolled thru ORD. Customs was usually quiet when PEK ORD would arrive early morning. I've made it off that flight in old 772 first class thru customs, a train, and then security back to air side in under 20 min before.

Not international but my 74 yr old father is soooo slow and has a 46 minute connection in DFW this week. He's going BOS DFW KOA. BOS DFW will arrive 1010AM in terminal A or C then the 1056AM flight to Kona always departs terminal D. His 620am flight from BOS scheduled to arrive DFW at 1010am is always 20-40 minutes early wonder why ?

Anyways I give my dad 10 minutes to get from his arrival gate to the tram , 10 minutes to take the tram to terminal D, then another 10 minutes to get to the gate. According to my calculations he will make it to the gate of the Kona flight with 16 minutes to departure.

Kudos to you on printing bag tags ahead of your baggage arrival!

Made a lightning quick DFW I-D connection a couple months ago flying SYD-DFW-SMF in F, even with a checked bag. We arrived at the beginning of the inbound TATL/TPAC bank (at 1pm), so had no wait to see a CBP agent. By the time I got to the carousel, maybe a half dozen others had arrived, and the carousel started within 2-3 minutes. Bag was one of the first off, breezed through customs and TSA, and was at the FL entrance within 20 minutes of walking off the plane.

Of course, I would've likely had a much longer experience had we arrived in the middle of that TATL/TPAC arrival bank. I think I saw the first 77W from LHR pull in as I walked into the FL.