Hi all:

I've lurked quite a bit but never posted before. Hope this is the proper forum...but my daughter will be studying in Mexico for 10 weeks this spring.

She is 21. I bought her roundtrip tickets last December. Continental just changed the schedule for her return trip back home.

She leaves Mexico and lands in Houston with a 55-minute window between her arrival from Mexico and the time her connecting flight leaves for her final destination of Portland, Oregon.

Previously, there had been five hours between her arrival in Houston and her connecting flight leaving for Portland.

I have not done much traveling. And never out of the country. I am thinking she will have to go through U.S. Customs when her Mexican flight lands in Houston. So, I am thinking there is no way she will make her connecting flight 55 minutes later.

What do you all think. I'm going to call Continental, but in prior experiences for connecting flights domestically, they always tell me there is plenty of time, and they have been wrong....

Is it possible to make the connection? Yes! But it really depends on the time of day that here flight from Mexico arrives. Most of the European flights get here between 1:30pm and 4:00pm, so those are the most crowded hours at customs here. Before or after that, it really isn't so bad. Plus, IAH just opened a brand new immigration and customs facility here last month that can handle 4500 people an hour, compared to the facility at Newark that has a capacity of 1500 an hour. On evening return flights from Latin America, I usually wizzed through the whole process in the old facility in about 15-20 minutes, though sometimes as little as 10. The only sticky point is that she will have to recheck her bags after leaving customs, though CO has a counter right there at the exit to expedite this process.

This thread will probably get moved to the CO forum.

Having flown a lot of int'l (but never through IAH), it will be very tight. Usually some of the int'l flight schedules are slightly padded, which would be welcome thing.

I would suggest your daughter carry a copy of the schedule change notice with her in case she encounters some grumpy GA who questions her choice in connection times.

Hi Oregonrain...and welcome to FlyerTalk! As was suggested earlier, this thread will probably get better response from the CO Forum where many of the folks have experience with the flights you mention.
I'm transferring this thread to the Continental Forum. I wish your daughter a successful trip.

__________________________________

Cholula

Travel Safety/Security Forum Moderator

I wouldn't do this connection.

Since CO changed the schedule, if it's not acceptable to you, you can choose another CO routing on the same day, if there is something better. Or, you can get a refund.

Those are your rights in a schedule change.

Since the refund opportunity is available to you, it maybe worthwhile checking fares on CO or other carriers to see if they've gone down. If they have, you can try pushing for the refund, then simply buying another ticket.

Less than an hour for clearing customs/immigration/security it not advisable at any airport, espescially at peak early afternoon periods when the Europe flights land. I have done it through EWR (due to a crew rest related delay) and it was tough! Luckily immigration was empty and our bags popped up quickly - otherwise we would have been SOL.

At least call to get the schedule changed. If she's scheduled on the last flight to Portland she may be in need of a hotel room should she miss her connection. It's not worth risking it, and shouldn't be any trouble to change. The poster who suggested a full refund made a lot of sense too, as taking advantage of the current rates, if cheaper, would be the thing to do.

Hi all:

Appreciate the replies. It also took me a while to "find" my post. I had posted it in Travel Security (customs, you know) and it was moved to the "co" forum.

Which was fine, except I didn't know what forum that was. I finally figured out how to do a search for my own posts, or I never would have found it!

Haven't talked to Continental yet. Prices have gone double since I bought the ticket and just by looking, seems the only option she would have that same day on Continential would be a hellish connection from Houton to Newark to Portland, Ore.

If she's going to try to make it, I would suggest she pay close attention to which booth is going to be taking the flight crews & passengers requiring assistance... and avoid the queue for that booth! It is usually the considered "first" open booth, but that may be the line furthest from where she entered the facility. At least that is the way it works at SEA, it might be different at IAH.

55 minutes is very tight. She can always go online and familiarize herself with the airport:
http://iah.houstonairportsystem.org/international
Although... I am not sure how much help it will be if she is caught up in big lines.

I agree Mexico-IAH-EWR-PDX is a pretty stressful trip. Which would be more taxing though, missing the connection and having to overnight or coming home the long route. (Somehow the thought of all those extra miles actually appeals to me!) Can she take an earlier flight out of Mexico or is there another route from the city in Mexico to??? Perhaps LAX or SFO where she can get a better connection to PDX?

Alison

This doesn't make any sense. If there's enough time to fly IAH-EWR-PDX, there's a later IAH-PDX they can switch her to while leaving her inbound into IAH in tact.

You should post some more details here so the experts here can figure out a solution. Date/Departure airport/Etc...

What he said.

Off the top of my head, there are at least SIX MEX-IAH flights daily, maybe more (where the hell are all those people going?). If all else fails, there's the possibility of getting to the airport early and trying to fly standby on an earlier flight. Of course, the first choice would be to call CO and ask to be rebooked on same.

I've done customs / immigration in fifteen minutes ( almost never travel with anything but carryon, and yes that includes my three week trip to Asia Sunday), but I've had my carryon searched at IAH to the tune of two hours ( they found pockets in my backpack I didn't know I had - there's a reason I declare everything, including newpapers I buy ). Of course there's a new facility now, but 55 minutes is not doable even by a seasoned traveler with luggage unless the moon is in the seveth phase and ......

And I assume when you posted Mexico, you meant MEX, not one of the many pueblos (thank you snake) that CO flies to that makes it the airline that flies to more destination in Mexico than any other airline

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