mlondon

Flying ABQ-DFW AA 1670 on Aug 10th, connecting to a Qatar Airways flight to Doha>CapeTown.

AA Flight is schedule to depart at 13:04 and arrive 15:54, which gives us 2h 41m to the scheduled departure time of 18:35 on Qatar. As far as I can tell, AA arrives at Terminal D, which is same terminal for Qatar.

The on-time performance of this flight is ~75-82%, average delay is 49 min, maximum delay is 1h 43min.
There have been no cancelled flights so far in 2022.

Have been reading about increasing delays and cancellations this year. And I know that the later in the day the flight is, the greater chance for delays due to equipment arriving late. And understand that thunderstorms are common in ABQ in August.

There is an earlier AA flight #928 departure 10:53, arrival DFW 13:37. This is a much safer option, but Qatar does not offer this flight, nor will they allow me to change my ticket. My only option would be to cancel my current Qatar ticket (fully refundable, but would lose some taxes), buy a new DFW-DOH-CPT return ticket, and buy a separate AA ticket ABQ-DFW-ABQ. This would also mean I would almost certainly have to collect my luggage in DFW and re-check-in in DFW unless AA can link the domestic ticket with my Qatar ticket.

It would cost a bit more, but not nearly as much as if my trip were delayed due to a missed, or cancelled, flight from ABQ-DFW !!

Grateful for some advice. I don't want to be paranoid. But I don't want to be dumb either!

JJeffrey

Honestly I wouldn't overthink this, with a 2:41 connection you have plenty of time and lots of cushion room if things were to be delayed.

While there have been some well publicized delay and cancellation issues this summer so far (on all airlines), at this stage so far in advance an 11am departure has just as much chance of having issues as a 1pm departure. Storms are common in a lot of the US in the summer but a 1pm departure should get you out before most summer weather pops up.

If it were an easy/free change to switch to the 11am departure then maybe, but to have to spend more $$ to switch not to mention adding in the separate ticket headaches with luggage etc. is just silly. If you're on a separate ABQ-DFW ticket and it gets delayed/cancelled then you're really screwed.

Also QR runs 2x daily DFH-DOH flights, so worst case scenario and you were to be really delayed into DFW you would just be rebooked onto the later DFW-DOH flight and on to CPT.

dfw88

AA operates into all terminals at DFW (A-E). Your ABQ-DFW flight will be mainline, so you'll arrive at A, B (the low B gates), C, or D. There's no way to know ahead of time, though A or C are the most likely as they handle the most narrowbody mainline flights. That said, it doesn't really matter. You'll have plenty of time to connect assuming all goes well. JJeffrey got it right.

mvoight

Thanks, that answered a totally unrelated question, I had about the AC in terminal B I have a flight this week which seems to hang out at B38, and I was wondering why the club was a the other end of the terminal.
I would guess it might related to where the mainline planes are

dfw88

Ooh, that one's misleading, actually. Up until 3 years ago (+ or - a year) there were no mainline gates at all in B, but the club was still all the way down at B5 or wherever it is. Since the club was there long before the gates I don't believe they're correlated. I've always assumed that it's down there simply because that's the only space they had. B is a fairly narrow concourse, so it makes sense.

ksucats

Thanks. I have always been curious about that. It seems like I am always at the complete other end when flying out of B. I really like going out of what I call the Whataburger gates in E. That club is nice & not very crowded.

metallo

ALL same day connections on AA are currently at risk, in my opinion.

Many connections I would have considered fairly
safe in 2019 now seem to be higher risk.

I wouldn’t necessarily shy away from booking somewhat tight connections if you need to do so. Not everyone can afford a whole extra day. However, it would be prudent to have a backup plan, including travel insurance, in place, because there is likely to be quite a bit of disruption and disappointment in summer 2022.

boerne

ABQ to DFW more often than not flies within your connection parameters even during monsoon season. Flown that route a lot. One option we have done successfully is to show up for that earlier flight, AA 928, and fly standby. Currently on EF they have only sold 14 seats in Y on 928. You did not mention your class of service, but even in J it would be worth it to get to DFW early in Y. Lots more to do at DFW than ABQ. But do love those green chile cheeseburgers in the ABQ airport. Then figure out a way to hit the Capitol One X club in D. Worth the trip. The AC would be a second choice.

There is a SW nonstop that gets to DAL at 1:15 pm. Its about 45 minutes to drive to DFW depending on traffic, much easier than JFK to LGA. You could buy a refundable as a back up if you don't get on the standby. IME Southwest will fly in possibly sketchy weather much more reliably than AA.

Bear96

If OP flies WN ABQ-DAL s/he'd be a no-show on the AA ABQ-DFW segment which would cancel the rest of the itinerary to CPT (it sounds like it is one ticket ABQ-DFW-DOH-CPT).

AAway

Regarding the location of the AC in Terminal B, when AA first entered B in the 90s, it was mainline only, and only the low B gates. Eagle was in the A2 satellite which is now the Corporate Aviation facility.
They also extended the trAAin to low B only at that time.

A series of large shuffles occurred in the following years with DL dehubbing DFW, all the non-AA airlines moving from B to to the old DL gates in E, Eagle abandoning A2 and taking over B (including the AA mainline gates), and GA moving from a shack to the A2 satellite.

More recently, AA/Eagle entered E first with the US merger than reopening the E satellite… and most recently, AA mainline taking back some low B gates (and sometimes using E2 for whatever reason). I suspect AA wanted more gates on the west side (where B is) for operational efficiencies for flights to/from points west as those typically use the runways on the west side.

mlondon

OP here. Yes, ABQ-DFW is on same ticket as ABQ-DFW-DOH-CPT, so not flying that sector is not an option.

To answer another question someone had, yes, we are on J class all the way.

Sounds like the only truly fail-proof plan would be to fly the day before on a separate ticket and refund/repurchase the DFW-DOH-CPT ticket.

But perhaps the best option is to hope for the best on original routing and if we somehow miss our DFW-DOH flight then there is another flight later that day on same routing assuming Q-suite is available, and if not, worst case we overnight in Dallas one day.

platbrownguy

This, but also get up early the morning of departure and see what the status of your plane is (check on Flightaware, etc). If your plane is running on time at 8am, great. But if it's already behind an hour+ then I would get to ABQ and ask an AAgent nicely if you can get on the 11am (assuming there's room). AA doesn't always take delays as soon as they are likely (i.e. your plane might be running 2 hours behind as of 9am but they might still show your 1pm as on time...), but you might still be able to jump to an earlier flight based on that fact. And of course if your 1pm flight is delayed 1 hour or more (and you know this by, say, 9:30am), then you should absolutely be able to use that to get on the 11am. Bottom line, pay attention to things from the morning of.

jfinsocal

I’d leave the night before but I am risk averse. 23 hour connections are allowed.

boerne

This is kinda what I was proposing but you did a much better job to explain it than I did. Family coming in tomorrow from ABQ to AUS so I am very aware of all the things that can go wrong.

Edit Also We are totally willing to fly in Y on the first short leg when ticketed in J to get to the departure airport for the long haul.