Originally Posted by TWA884 (Post 35826781)

Since no one has shared their experiences, let me share my thoughts.

LAX is my home airport; I have never connected or repositioned here.

This appears to be a trip on separate tickets or PNRs. I assume that for a family trip to Europe, you will be checking bags. Keep in mind that at LAX, it often takes as long as half an hour for checked bags to show up on the luggage carousels.

Once you have your bags, it will take you 5-10 minutes to get from T3 (DL) or 15-20 minutes to get from T1 (WN) to the check-in counters at TBIT. While you did not identify the airline that you are flying to Europe, just about every airline has a 60 minutes cutoff for checking bags for international flights.

You didn't write whether you and your family have TSA PreCheck. Figure on 5-15 to clear security with PreCheck and up to 20-30 minutes without; however, that can be done in the time between checking your bags for the international flight and the start of boarding time, generally 30-40 minutes prior to departure time.

Should your flight depart from the West Gates concourse (200's) add 15-20 minutes to get there. That cuts your self-transfer time to approximately a hour or less. You will have no margin for error in case that your flight from Sacramento is delayed. I would not feel comfortable with only three hours for a self-transfer to an international flight at LAX.

Originally Posted by buildingcredit (Post 35827727)

Regarding the travel time from T1 or T3, I'm assuming that's the walk outside of the terminals?

Originally Posted by Dutchy89 (Post 35831105)

Due to several schedule changes, our transfertime at LAX has become a bit tight.. At the end of January we have a 1hr and 20m layover.
We are arriving in TBIT and departing from T3. We both have GE, Tsa Pre and Sky priority. All on 1 ticket. (KLM/Delta). What do you guys think? There is only1 flight later that day but this one leaves 5 hours later..

Originally Posted by TWA884 (Post 35831176)

With GE and without checked bags it has never taken me more than 15 minutes to get from plane to curb at TBIT and often less than that. That has always been when arriving at a gate on the main concourse (100s gates). I know that Air France now operates from the West Gates concourse (200s gates); I don't know if KLM also moved there. That can add as many as 15 minutes to get to the Federal Inspection Facility and the curb.

At the most, T3 is a five minutes walk from TBIT.

With checked bags, it can easily take 30 minutes or even longer for the bags to show up on the luggage carousels. I have no idea how long the wait is to drop off the tagged bags at the recheck counter. Assuming that your inbound is on time, it is still probably doable.

Lastly, the last few days, KLM's flight from AMS has arrived late at LAX. I am not familiar with Delta's policy about protecting passengers who missed their connection due to flight delays. Will they guarantee you a seat on the next flight or just place you on the standby list?

Originally Posted by Eastbay1K (Post 35831355)

I've never waited more than a minute or so for bag recheck. The choke point is getting the bags in the first place. The "I'm Better Than You" tags that frequent my bags generally (but not always) serve as decoration only at LAX.

Originally Posted by TWA884 (Post 35831410)

I've got near zero experience with checking bags. Except when going on ski trips, I've been traveling with only carry on bags for over 30 years. The only isolated exceptions have been when being forced to gate check a roll-a-board while flying standby. Fortunately, even in those situations, I have never had to recheck a bag. I haven't arrived at TBIT with checked bags since the mid 80s.

Originally Posted by NiHo (Post 35868405)

May I ask the frequent flyers in this group who are familiar with LAX airport for their judgement :) :

We are flying VIE - LHR - LAX - HNL (Vienna – London Heathrow – Los Angeles – Honolulu) on a Saturday in April. So far, the connection time including entry into the US with an ESTA in LAX was about 3:30 hrs. Due to flight schedule changes, the time has been reduced to 02:45 hrs.

Is this realistic? We are flying British Airways Business Class with checked-in luggage all tickets are booked in one PNR. We are Austrian citizens and therefore cannot apply for Global Entry. We are both traveling to the US with a new ESTA. Previous entries were with a different ESTA and with an older passport. Arrival time is around 03:00 p.m. LAX time.

Unfortunately, we cannot simply take an earlier flight but would have to travel to London the night before and plan an overnight stay in an airport hotel.

Thanks a lot for your help !

Originally Posted by TWA884 (Post 35869057)

Welcome to FlyerTalk NiHo!
Assuming that your flight to HNL is on American and your bags are checked through, you should be fine. Should your flight from LHR arrive late, you will be met at the exit from the plane by an agent who will provide you with a bright orange oneworld "Express Connection" card or ticket jacket. That will give you priority clearing immigration and customs inspections, dropping your bags off at the transfer desks at the exit from the Federal Inspection Services Facility and going through the TSA security checkpoint. AA flights to HNL generally depart from T5, approximately a 6-10 minutes walk from TBIT. Sometimes those depart from T4 (3-5 minutes walk) or TBIT.

Originally Posted by TWA884 (Post 35831176)

I have no idea how long the wait is to drop off the tagged bags at the recheck counter.

Originally Posted by 747FC (Post 35872851)

From you post, it appears that there is a place to drop our bags after exiting customs? Just wanting to confirm that we can drop our bags at TBIT and then take a walk to Terminal 3 with only our carryon luggage.

Originally Posted by Dutchy89 (Post 35831105)

Due to several schedule changes, our transfertime at LAX has become a bit tight.. At the end of January we have a 1hr and 20m layover.
We are arriving in TBIT and departing from T3. We both have GE, Tsa Pre and Sky priority. All on 1 ticket. (KLM/Delta). What do you guys think? There is only1 flight later that day but this one leaves 5 hours later..