Any thoughts/experience on connecting in ATH?
 

I've got a DCA-PHL-ATH booked scheduled to arrive at 905am, and we'd ideally like to make the Aegean flight to HER (our actual destination) at 10am since the next one is not until 1:25pm, but we'd have to book it separate PNR, so obviously that's a bit risky...

Few questions:

1) Any experience with ATH airport/immigration that leads you to believe we'd definitely be able to make or would definitely miss this flight?

2) Anything other than contract lounges available for OW ticket holders?

3) If we do take the 1:25pm, and assuming we do actually land around 9am, is that even remotely enough time to go into Athens and see even 1-2 things at that time of day? [I've never been but my fiancee has]

4) Any other ideas? Anything I'm missing?

A 55 minute connection on an international itinerary flying on two separate tickets?
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What could possibly go wrong!!

Me? I wouldn't risk it.

Listed MCT for I/D is 55 minutes, so I figure it's gotta be doable, just looking for first hand info and/or what one might be able to do with a ~4.5 hour layover in ATH in terms of sightseeing.

Making a 55 minute I/D connection in ATH certainly is possible. I did it a few years ago flying ATL-ATH and then on to Santorini.

To improve my chances, I jammed everything into a carry-on and had no checked luggage. I got a seat near the exit, allowing me to beat most of the people on my flight to passport control. Once I cleared immigration, I knew exactly where to go to check-in for my connection.

If you must check/retrieve luggage, if your inbound is late, if you're among the last people off the inbound flight or if you face long customs lines, your chances would be diminished.

A safer strategy might be to book the later flight and try for the 10 am if all factors cut your way.

Assuming an hour for arrival, and check-in an hour in advance of the later flight, plus travel time to/from the city, you would have very little opportunity to do much in Athens.

Thanks for the experience... definitely encouraging, and I think we could do that since we'll be arriving in J and I can push for carry-on only.

I may just go ahead and buy a ticket on both the 10:00am and 1:25pm as it's about $200 per person for both flights, and buying a changeable/refundable ticket is $215--and of course if we bought a changeable ticket, there's no guarantee of space being available on the day of travel.

Any downside to buying 2 tickets on the same airline on the same day? I can see how they may frown upon that...

While not directly applicable to your itinerary, we arrived late in the day at Athens and recovered from TATL flying in the Athens Airport Sofitel, which is a really nice hotel, before connecting to A3, actually on a separate PNR, the next day. It can be convenient for flights leaving ATH in the morning as well.

To check on possible strike activity see here:

http://livingingreece.gr/strikes/

Leaving, we sat on the tarmac at ATH for four hours due to an ATC work stoppage and were lucky to get out that day at all, ending up overnighting near JFK due to missed connections.

If you buy a business class ticket on A3, you should get access to their lounge as well as getting flexibility to try to take the earlier flight. It's a nice little airline with good F&B as well as customer service.

With separate tickets (or even not) I wouldn't try the 55 minute connection, especially since flights to the Greek islands in high season can be fully booked. If you miss the early flight that you're booked on, there might not be available seats on later flights.