connecting at SGN - what does this mean??
 

Hi all,

I have a flight on BI arriving at SGN at 13:25 and am hoping to connect to Jetstar domestic at 15:20. According to EF min time at the airport is 1hr, but for some reason there appears to be an exception with BI and I have no idea why.

Can anyone tell me what this means?? Am I relatively safe to connect to Jetstar in 1:55?

Minimum Connect TimesShare Results
STANDARD.D/D...D/I...I/D...I/I.
ONLINE 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00
OFFLINE 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00
** OR * ARE ALL
BI-** ID 2.00

Thanks in advance!

Do you have to go thru immigration/customs, pick up your bad and re-check?

MCT is for actual "connections" on one ticket, right? If this is separate tickets that wouldn't apply anyway...

I would assume so...coming in international to domestic. Does that mean that if ALL flights are BI it's 2 hours?

If I run the same query using MH it says 1 hour.

So, how can I determine if 1:55 is enough time?

My understanding is that you arrive at international terminal and depart from domestic terminal which means that you need to go thru customs/immigration and deal all visa related stuff (if such applies to you).

Edit: I won't say you should be fine given the comments below mine anymore. But my times should be accurate. You will have to decide if that's enough time for you.

Immigration is 5-45 min at worst, if more than 20 min your bag should already be through anyway. Then 5 min walk to the domestic terminal. So even if the immigration queues are really long, you should still be at the Jetstar counter about 45-60 min before your flight.

The caveat of course is if your BI flight is late.

Jetstar and some other LCCs have nasty clauses that their check in closes 30 min before departure. At least this is the case in Singapore.

Interesting...jetstar asia says check in and baggage drop closes 45min before departure...that might make it a bit tight.

Does anyone know why EF specifically mentions BI on MCT? Obviously I searched for BI to SGN on to Jetstar, but when I replace BI with MH there is no 2 hour MCT mentioned.

Given these comments (I was unaware, I avoid jetstar in VN) I've edited my comment above a little. I think the times I give will be accurate, but if that is good enough for you or not I should not say.

When travelling on separate tickets, it is always advisable to schedule something like 3 hrs between flights. If the 1st flight is delayed, you can be in troubles.

Domestic LCC's at SGN can be notorious for having very long queue's sometimes.
You could be lucky and have no problems but 1:55 could get tight if things don't go your way.

I think for a SGN international-domestic connection, I'd want to budget 3 hours. I had a SIN-SGN-PQC connection the other day, and there was nobody in immigration (I walked up straight to the counter) and bags came out right away, so I checked in for my domestic flight less than 30 minutes after touchdown, and was at the lounge with 2h15m to spare. At other times, you can have a half hour immigration wait (plus half an hour for prearranged visa, if applicable), and lines at domestic check-in can be atrocious (and people with imminent departures will be given preferential treatment, so it can take a long time to get to the counter). The pay-in (PP/loungeclub) lounge at SGN domestic is not horrible, so I'd recommend minimizing stress and planning a slightly longer layover. (Of course if you're flying Vietnamese LCCs, you may face long delays, so the 3 hour layover might turn into 6, but there's no way to safeguard against that, although simple strategies like avoiding PM flights can help minimize delays).

We flew threw SGN last year for the first time......Landing didn't seem like a big issue albeit it was around 10:00 p.m. at night. Just normal process with a little waiting getting through..........coming home was a whole different story! Thank goodness we arrived to the aiport early and didn't dwiddle around before we checked in. We were flying out in the morning on Korean and we checked in immediately - Within about 15 minutes waiting to get checked in the line grew to at least triple the size.....waiting to get through security and such was crazy......I believe we were there about 3 hours before our flight and literally walked to our gate and had about 15 minutes to spare.

SGN to a tee right there.