teemuflyer

I had a chat with a long time bartender at the Austin AAdmirals Club about the forthcoming up gauge of the BA flight to LHR to a 744, and he brought up the fact that during the Austin F1 weekend, especially the Monday after, is the busiest he's ever seen the airport and the lounge in the past few years..

Just plan to arrive extra early for the check-in and security lines and for a struggle to find seating at the lounge on those dates.

jeffers

Flying into Austin from London is superb.

I've done it three times now all in F, and the combination of a car from central London to T5, the CCR, the new 789 F seat, and the very simple arrivals formalities make it a dream.

Helps that we live one mile from AUS too ^

Trying to get 2xF seats next August for the route on the 744 - interested to compare it to the 789 experience.

dougzz

This has been explained many times, and it does benefit status flyers. If BA do introduce an all aisle access J seat it’ll be interesting to see how that may change things, given that could make the seats similar, and reduce the concern of seat selection.

MarkedMan

The 789 seat is a whole lot better, but many still love the 747 experience, even in F.

It is a bit crowded at the pointy end, most airlines who had F on 747s used to have somewhere between 10 and 12 seats, BA squeezed 14 in there, more in line with some J offerings. The space around you is significantly less as a result, especially when compared to the A380.

There are two lavatories on the 747, some folks have complained of the 787 only having 1.

All in all for me the 789 wins handily, but for many there is an aura to the 747 which still makes it a relative favorite.

binman

Resurrecting old thread for a question on immigration and baggage delivery times.

using Avios to go to Austin next year but need to fly onwards on arrival. What would be considered a sensible connection time at Austin. The flight am looking at has a 135 minutes from arrival.

manord

Assuming all flights are on one ticket, that should be plenty of time for AUS.

AUS is fairly small with only a few international arrivals so unlikely to be long immigration queues (indeed in my experience there is usually no queue at all for the BA arrival).

I can’t recall ever having done a connection at AUS, but the main TSA checklists from landside to airside are usually reasonably quick. All TSA security entrances lead to the same airside area but sometimes you see a long queue at one entrance and the one at the other end of the terminal will be almost empty.

edited to add:

Worth noting that as always the risk is late incoming flight meaning a missed connection, and with AUS being a small airport, there are fewer onward options if the original flight is missed.

vintagepilot

We arrived into AUS earlier this year with BA. I don't know the airport layout, but we were directed into a separate arrival area, with a single baggage belt and about 4 immigration desks, all in the same small hall. Unusually, in my possibly limited experience, we had to get our bags before going through the immigration process. So getting off first only helps if your bags are out first. And even if you are on a single ticket, you will still need to reclaim your bags and clear immigration and customs at your first point of entry into the US. Fortunately, our bags came out straight away.

There were very few ahead of us in the ESTA entry line while GE looked only a smidge quicker at that stage. There was a big queue, ever growing, for GE clearance on arrival (maybe some were in the wrong queue but it seemed like a lot of GE applicants) That said, there were plenty of agents guiding folks to the correct desk. We were through in less than 10 minutes I reckon but looking back as we left the area, the queues were growing fast. If you are last off, or waiting for bags, you will be at the back of the immigration queue and it could take a while - just how long I didn't see.

binman

Thank you both, very helpful. I will probably risk the connection. It’s on southwest and the fare is good and flight non stop. If I am delayed in bound the insurance can cover my costs.

biggest risk is BAs clapped out 747 fleet.

Austin hotel prices for start of April are mad and that’s why I have decided to move on.

tuonopepper

I'm flying out of AUS in a couple of weeks. I believe LH have now started a direct service from Frankfurt and wondering how that impacts the currently smooth imigration process etc.

Need to look and see if the times are similar or there's a decent gap between them - couple of hours apart, guess it could be interesting if LH is delayed.... Seem to recall AUS only has the one gate that can handle wide body frames.

teemuflyer

They can handle 2, at a minimum, maybe even more after the latest terminal expansion is completed. I know this because several years ago I was scheduled to fly out on Day 1, and the plane went MX. Next day there were 2 almost simultaneous BA flights leaving for LHR. The AC was jam packed, and given the small ground crew BA has for this once daily only flight, it was somewhat chaotic for people to get into the correct line for the planes that were side by side.

Edit: Looks like 3 gates have been assigned for Int'l long haul flights at ABIA (2,3 and 6), shared by BA, LH and DY.