xliioper

Sounds like you are on afternoon (1:30PM) flight to TUS. In addition to an evening non-stop, there are connecting options via SLC and LAX after the 1:30PM flight. So there are still quite a few options if you miss flight and they will likely be able to get you there same day (unlike certain destinations which are only served with a single daily ATL flight). I see PHL flights arriving all over the place (T, A, B, C, and E), so I doubt you will really know until evening before flight. Sounds like you are looking at departure gate at PHL which are the D gates, instead of arrival gates at ATL. The noonish ATL-TUS flight has generally been departing from A and B gates.

WillBarrett_68

sure, even for an experienced traveler, a connection is less optimal than a nonstop, but that's a different matter than just saying "well you're screwed and have to wait until tomorrow"

opus2002

Yes, departure to TUS is somewhere around 1:30pm (going off the top of my head). I just check the flight status today, and it is indeed all over the place for PHL-ATL arrival.

racandee

Delta does not permit overnight connections for this route—we’ve triple checked and confirmed this with them. . We’d have to book multicity on Exoedia. Delta is pretty much daring them to cancel.

racandee

A lot of it seems to depend on when the agent decides to close the gate for the BZE flight. If they close the door 10 minutes before the flight, it’s possible. 20 minutes before, physically impossible.

And of course the outbound flight has zero padding in it—zero. 2 hours 15 minutes gate to gate SYR-ATL (which happens maybe 10% of the time—this is a 2 hour and 30 minute route in reality).

it’s only a 4 night trip, and not a cheap one on a nightly basis. I suspect they’ll just wind up canceling and wish us a fun trip—they certainly wouldn’t have booked a 40 minute connection if that had been the option on the table.

Delta doesn’t offer overnight connections (they’ve requested that from Delta and have been turned down) so they’re literally almost forcing these people to cancel rather than work something out. I know airlines care nothing about their customers but you’d think they’d want to prevent the cancellation of a refundable ticket.

emma dog

These announcements are such a pet peeve to me, more so as an O&D ATL traveller. The reality is if you’re in the back of the plane there are plenty of people towards the front who also have short connections. Also, I preferentially sit on the aisle, which means that I need to get up if someone in the middle or aisle feels they need to get up. Finally, I am an expert at “grab and go,” meaning I am not slowing anyone down. And finally, it feels futile to stay seated when I see the mass of people behind me all trying to get up despite the announcement.

Sorry… this probably belongs in the rants thread.

WillBarrett_68

A 40 minute connection in ATL is not "aspirational" - it's completely normal. If "50%" of 40 minute connections were resulting in misconnect, they would be changing the MCT.

I book 35-40 minute connections in ATL all the time, and the last time I misconnected was 2015 - and in that case it was a WX irop, and my original connection was over an hour.

The idea that these are insanely dangerous connections is simply ridiculous. Delta has no interest in booking unrealistic connections, as this is effectively spoiling their perishable inventory. MCTs are set with this in mind.

racandee

1) their flight arrival time isn’t realistic. This route averages over 2 hours and 30 minutes and it’s scheduled duration is 2 hours 15 minutes It’s 2 hours just in the air. Only about 10% of their flights take 2.25 hours or less. In this case, the original connection time was cut by 50% by a post hoc schedule change. After the initial schedule change the layover was below the MCT which would have meant an automatic refund. But then Delta decided to shave 10 minutes off the scheduled flight time and the MCT was legal. Totally legit!

2) even if the arrival flight goes *perfectly* (which never happens with pandemic-era Delta in our experience), they will have at most 20-25 minutes to deplane, walk through B or C concourse to the plane train, wait for the plane train, board the plain train, ride the plane train to the international concourse, and then walk from the plane train to their gate.

3) and even then they have to *hope* Delta hasn’t already given their seats to Standby passengers. Or that the gate hasn’t been closed. This is an international flight and they are typically in a rush to get those away ASAP. Delta typically closes the gate at least 15-20 minutes before scheduled departure time for international flights. The average gate departure time for the connecting flight is 8-10 minutes before scheduled departure time. Which means the gate closes 20 minutes before scheduled departure.

4) and that is the best case scenario, assuming not a minute is wasted at any point with perfect ground and air conditions. No delays in loading baggage, no mechanical issues, flight crew ready to go, etc.

5) airlines don’t care if you make your connection, they just want your money. If you have to fly standby 2 days later, they’re okay with that. They already have your money. They’ve pulled this on us before—changed the connection time to something utterly unrealistic (40 minutes in DTW over the winter holidays with an arrival from MSP) and then just booked us on the next day’s flight rather than hold the connecting flight to a regional airport 10 minutes. We managed to get booked at a flight later that day for an airport 50 miles from the original destination but we were fortunate to have that option. (Of course our bags never made that flight despite the fact they had 8 hours to load them). Others were being told by Delta they’d have to sleep in the airport because they missed their connections. See also point (1) above.

6) I think expecting Delta to do everything perfectly counts as aspirational. You really disagree with that?

VanSmack

None of this is true. We fly SYR>ATL>CUN two or three times a year for nearly the past twenty years, every time a connection under an hour, including several within a minute or two of 35 minutes. I better knock on wood now, but we have made every connection, and have never had to run to do so. The flight time from SYR is well padded, it's far far from a non-realistic MCT.

racandee

What time of day are you flying?

Delta’s May SYR-ATL early flight is scheduled for 2 hrs 15 min. It’s a 2 hours in the air, which gives 15 minutes for taxiing at both ends combined. There’s no padding there. Especially since virtually no flight on any airline has under 8-10 min taxi time at SYR (not sure what their issue is). It’s literally almost impossible for a 135 minute SYR-ATL flight to arrive in time for people to make 35-40 minute connections. 2 hours in the air, 10 on the run way at both ends, best case scenario flight is 5 minutes late arriving. Assuming the gate closes 15 minutes early on an international flight, best case scenario is roughly 15 minutes to make it from Concourse B gate to E/F gate once they’re off the arrival flight.

if it was even a 50 minute connection time, I’d say decent chance at making it. With zero padding and 40 minutes connection time, chances of making the international flight are well under 50%—Delta has no business offering that as a legal flight connection.

The current early Delta flight # from SYR is 2991, and it averages closer to 3 hours than 2 hours in real flight time.

https://flightaware.com/live/flight/DAL2991

fudgeukraine

Booked a trip directly through KLM which upon the return leg, includes a codeshare on one of the sections:

Wed 6th Apr
KL5791 (Operated by Delta - DL1373)
MCO - ATL
19:55 - 21:25

KL622
ATL - AMS
22:30 - 12:55

So have approx 65 mins transfer time. The fact that KLM sold us the routing on their website means they believe we can make it, however starting to now get worried about it!

Looking at the past few flights on flightradar, it seems to arrive anytime from about 21:10 to 21:45, but generally 21:25

If anyone has any experience or advice on this one that'd be great.

Thanks

cygnus

One hour is a piece of cake in ATL.

jjl468

From the ATL MCT thread:
Looks like DL1373 is on a 767, which would result in an MCT of 50 minutes, so you should be fine barring any delays.

Edit: aaaand the post got moved into the thread

beachmouse

April is generally too early in the year to worry about ATL thunderstorm delays, which tend to be the big wildcard there.

emma dog

we’ve had some nasty storms already that have shut the airport down for extended periods of time… not sure this advice is still true.