US to US Connection at YYZ
 

An ORD-based friend is doing a MR to NRT to meet me for 24 hours in Tokyo in October. He bought a AA YYZ-ORD-NRT-ORD-YYZ RT fare and is planning to purchase a connecting flight ORD-YYZ to position (and then not take final connecting leg ORD-YYZ on the return).

He can buy a ticket ORD-YYZ on the same aircraft that turns around and makes the first leg of the trip to NRT (AA doesn't have a lot of flights to YYZ, so its always the same aircraft that does ORD-YYZ-ORD). The "Transit" time in YYZ is 50 minutes. My question is -- is this a legal option? Assuming he has done online check-in for the YYZ-NRT trip, any reason he shouldn't be able to make this connection? Can you get off the plane in YYZ in the transborder area and get onto another plane without clearing customs and immigration? If it looks like it would go south before leaving ORD (delayed flight), he would probably be able to make arrangements with AA to just start the trip at ORD instead. Or am I missing something? Advice welcome.

Ironically it's the "Chicago Conference" that makes this illegal.

Forgetting legality of the situation I would find myself uncomfortable with the limits of the flight plan. If your friend's ORD-YYZ is delayed making your friend unable to get to the YYZ-ORD flight in time to meet the ORD-NRT flight your friend's entire ticket can and will be canceled. If I were in this situation I would fly the night before on any airline and stayover. Actually I'd fly over on the MDW-YTZ for the PD experience. It's a great short flight and flying into the downtown airport is much nicer than into YYZ.

There is no US to US set up for connections at YYZ as no airlines can legally sell that type of ticket. So Canadian immigration will have to be cleared and then after that one will have to proceed to US preclearance for the flight back to ORD.

Quite honestly believing that your friend will turn on the same aircraft in 50 minutes is ludicrous at best, nevermind that these are seperate tickets so there is no protection on the second flights if they miss them from the original flight being late. If the inbound flight is late, presuming it is the same plane for the outbound, AA will do everything to turn the flight quickly to minimize the delay.

Actually it is not illegal for a US carrier to sell such a ticket - it is just so impractical that they don't. It would be illegal for a Canadian carrier to sell such a ticket. A corresponding Canada to Canada itinerary with a connection in the US would be legal (but impractical) for a Canadian carrier to sell, but illegal for a US carrier to sell.

For some examples:
A US carrier can sell: SEA-YYZ-BOS (Origin and Destination in US, connection in Canada)
A US carrier can't sell: YVR-ORD-YYZ (Origin and Destination in Canada, connection in US)

A Canadian carrier can sell: YVR-ORD-YYZ (Origin and Destination in Canada, connection in US)
A Canadian carrier can't sell: SEA-YYZ-BOS (Origin and Destination in US, connection in Canada)

The real question is can your friend use the int'l transit desk upon arrival or will he need to clear customs/immigration?

In T1 there's a special line for international transfer before immigration but I've never tried it for a US arrival-to-US departure connection. In theory this would be perfectly legal but I wouldn't bet my MR on it (this lane is often closed). My guess is he'll have to clear customs and US pre-clearance and go back thru security.

If he has NEXUS then he can probably still do a 50 min connection even if he has to go thru immigration (I've done it myself) but that would be very, very tight.

Also, AA operates out of Terminal 3 which is bit more byzantine than T1. Lines can get extremely long depending on time of day.

no as that is for us to international to go us to us one has to clear cbsa and then us preclearance
then clear screening

Thanks all for the advice. I'll suggest he fly in the night before.

No you cannot go from ITNL arrival directly to US departure in T3 where AA operates from. There is no separation of arrival pax from US, they are all INTL.

Procedure will be arrival, clear CBSA immigration and customs, head to US departure, clear US CBP immigration/customs(same), clear CATSA security.

50 minutes, Fuhgeddaboudit!

I purchased a sale fare YYZ-SIN-YYZ via SFO and added on leg from NYC at each end so will fly NYC-YYZ-SFO-SIN and the same on return. The NYC-YYZ-SFO legs are on Air Canada and in terminal 1. Has anyone done this in Toronto and what kind of connection times will I need? I am concerned now with the return since the SFO-YYZ changed to later thus cutting into my connection time for my YYZ-NYC flight.

You might have your bags transferred but sometimes if the first check in is by contracted agents you might not.

All Int'l arrival to US will be subjected to US CBP and CATSA security checks.
The lineup for these depends on the day of the week and the time of that day that you are flying and what is your layover time.

We have 2 hr 40 mins on the outbound and only 1 hr 20 mins on the return due to the schedule change. We arrive from SFO at 7:40pm and are on the last flight out to NYC at 9pm. I am hoping that it all being on Air Canada and being that late will help.

​​​​​​2h40. Is comfortable, 1:20m is tight.
9pm flight to NYC is last flight of the day/night. Remember you are on separate tickets and plan for worst case scenario.

It is all booked on the same ticket. But I had to do it via mulit-destination option since no search would return this routing! I am prepared to miss it but hoping for the best!!

Can i through check my bags on this trip (its all on one PNR)
Depart San Antonio, TX to Toronto, Canada

Wednesday, April 18, 2018

5:04 AM-6:12 SAT-DFW
6:59 AM-11:05 AM DFW-YYZ
Depart Toronto, Canada to Chicago, IL

Wednesday, April 18, 2018

7:55 PM -8:56 PM YYZ-ORD
Depart Chicago, IL to Minneapolis/St Paul, MN

Wednesday, April 18, 2018


9:55 PM-11:25 PM ORD-MSP

No. You will need to pass Canadian Customs on arrival at YYZ from DFW and then US Customs at YYZ enroute to ORD. Other factors include not just same PNR, but whether you are on one ticket and if not on one ticket, what carrier(s).

Same PNR 3 tickets SAT-YYZ, YYZ-ORD, ORD-MSP all American except for ORD-MSP that is american eagle

You are asking for a lot to go right, particularly if you have bags. If it was a schedule change that crunched the connection, it may be worth trying to request a free change. That said, I didn't realize they were allowed to sell that routing on one ticket, guess I learn new things here all the time.

Look at the YYZ arrival and departure time.
Based on that, I read it as one ticket into YYZ, one ticket out in the same PNR

Understood, doesn't matter if you miss the last connection of the night in terms of getting there that day, only saves a fight about getting rebooked. In order to avoid the tight connection, my advice was to utilize the fact there was a schedule change to get a more manageable connection. Depending how it was ticketed, you never know if perhaps a SFO-NYC direct might be possible.

If OP is on two tickets, he is not connecting and the change does not "crunch" anything. The schedule change on his first ticket will have to stand on its own.

Thanks everyone for your comments. This is all one ticket number but the two legs between YYZ and NYC were added on via multi-destination. The cheap fare was YYZ-SIN-YYZ. The change in time was only 10 minutes but with so little time anyway every minute counts. It is within the MCT for US-YYZ and YYZ-US (no guarantee on this I know!) but the combo of the two is what may make it challenging. There will be bags checked unfortunately.

The advertised fare was the UA/NH: YYZ-SIN, $2600 or so thread so it was a UA fare. I entered the following legs: NYC-YYZ, YYZ-SIN, SIN-YYZ and YYZ-NYC on the UA site. There were lots of options and connections (pages) but I chose what I did because it was AC 787 SFO-YYZ-SFO and I could get AC also on the NYC-YYZ-NYC legs hoping to make connections more convenient. All flights are UA numbers. Only the SFO-SIN-SFO legs are on UA metal.