Originally Posted by YellowRoseTX

I've tried asking for an earlier flight. I'm main cabin and they want $136 to switch it.. A main cabin BHM to ATL if I purchased it outright is only $126, and both my current BHM-ATL flight and an earlier BHM-ATL flight are priced identical, so it kinda made me mad. My overall round trip flight is now $136 more than when I booked it -- and that's how they price it.

Originally Posted by beachmouse

Your passport and any covid documents are formally checked before you get on your first flight in Birmingham. There's typically a second brief passport check before you get on your international flight. The purpose of that is to make sure no one dropped their passport in a toilet during a restroom break in between check-in and boarding. (Airlines face huge fines if they transport people to a foreign country without proper documents so they're careful about that)

No security or immigration on a domestic to international connection in Atlanta. All gates are in a common 'airside' area at the airport so you never hit a checkpoint for connectionsunless you're going from an international to domestic flight there.

Delta is pretty generous in terms of the time blocks it sets up for flight schedules. The good news is that your Birmingham-Atlanta flight is scheduled for 15-20 minutes more than it really needs. The bad news is that because of air space congestion over Atlanta, short flights into ATL are prone to getting 15-20 minute 'hold at origin' orders from Atlanta air traffic control because it's safer, better for the environment and cheaper for the airline to do it that way rather than burn fuel in a holding pattern over Georgia waiting for a landing slot.

So you probably would get into ATL just fine for your connection even with a slight delay.

However the 'what happens if it goes wrong?' is pretty high, IMO. A hotel in ATL you'd want to stay at can easily be more than $136 a night, you'd have to do some quick checking about whether you'd have to do another quick covid test at ATL in order to be admitted to Italy and also have to deal with trying to cancel and rebook any first night hotel before you got marked as a 'no show' and that can be annoying.

I've had a domestic to international misconnect at ATL despite a 2.5 hour planned connection there (a thunderstorm led to a ground stop and it was a mess and a half to get the system back to where it should be again) and after that experience I'd do the $136 flight change and call it reasonable insurance in making the connection and not missing precious time in Italy.

Originally Posted by mot29

YellowRose
Only 1x day ATL-FCO, if you miss the connection you would have to overnight in ATL.

Originally Posted by WillBarrett_68

extremely doubtful. in the event of a misconnect OP would most likely be rerouted through AMS/CDG.

Originally Posted by YellowRoseTX

This is my first time flying internationally. I have a Delta (but maybe really Envoy?) flight from Birmingham to Atlanta on a 717. Then exactly 1 hour to connect to my flight to Rome (assuming an on-time arrival.) It sounds like that should be sufficient, but I want to be sure I understand the process when I arrive at Atlanta. Do I simply have to get off one plane and go find the other plane? I see that I don't have to go thru security again. But I saw an article that mentioned going thru Passport Control and then going thru the baggage area to pass thru customs. Does any of that apply to me or is that only for arriving international flights? I understand Delta requires a Covid test and I think both airports and airlines may still require masks. But is there anything special Covid-related I will need to do at ATL ? Thanks for your feedback.

Originally Posted by racandee

Our traveling companions booked on Delta from Syracuse to Belize, and we booked JFK to Belize. Originally they had well over an hour to make the connection and we had almost 2 hours. But then Delta changed the flight schedules and the new flight info means:

Passengers from SYR: 40 minutes between flights (arriving 9:05, leaving 9:45)

Passengers from JFK: 81 minutes between flights (arrive at 8:24, leaving at 9:45).

my understanding is that the folks from SYR will just need to rebook as it’s just not realistic for a 40 minute connection to an international flight. Those of us flying from JFK should be okay as long as they don’t eff with the schedules anymore.

full disclosure: the last two times we’ve flown, we’ve missed connections due to airline schedule changes after we booked. So we’re anxious especially since there’s only one flight per day from ATL to BZE.

Originally Posted by xliioper

As mentioned here a number of times, connecting from a domestic flight to an international flight is basically no different than connecting between domestic flights (you don't go through immigrations and customs when exiting the US). While 40 minutes is tight for ATL, it is actually a legal connection for connecting from a domestic to international flight on Delta at ATL. While they might be willing to move your companions to an earlier flight, they are not required to do so. Further, since there are no earlier flights from SYR to ATL, they would have to fly to ATL the night before to go earlier (note that airlines do not pay for your hotel if you book an overnight connection).

Originally Posted by racandee

the alternative would be to cancel their tix (they are fully refundable) and do an Expedia multi city booking wherein they’d stay with us in NYC overnight and then we’d all take the JFK flight together.

Understand that 40 minutes is a legal connection with Delta but legal times are aspirational rather than realistic (especially since Delta has a policy of not holding connecting flights—can say this from personal experience).

it was an 90 minute connection for them when they booked their tix-just fortunate that they paid for refundable since Delta pulled these shenanigans. (Delta did the same thing to us over the holidays and we missed our connecting by 10 minutes).

Originally Posted by opus2002

I have a PHL-ATL-TUS flight coming up traveling on busy time with two grade school kids. Connection time is 55 minutes. As of now, it seems most flights from PHL arrive in Terminal D while TUS flights department terminal A. We are seated towards the back of the 757 arriving into ATL. Should I be asking flight attendants to see if we can get off the plane first or that is not needed?