Connection time at PHL ?
 

Hi Flight time changes seem to be dominating the cal household this weekend, my son had a 2 hour connection time PHL-CUN which has now been cut to 1hr 10 mins. He will be arriving at PHL on an internal flight into terminal F and departing from terminal A. Could anyone familiar with PHL advise if this connection time is OK.
Regards cal

1 hour 10 is do-able at PHL, but leaves very little room for delays, F and A are the furthest apart in the airport. There is a bus linking Terminal F (Gate F10 if I remember) and Terminal A (Gate A1- Terminal A-East).

To put this in perspective, in 2007, I arrived at F on a very badly delayed YUL flight and still made in on to a DUB from A-West, they literally closed the doors behind me. From they opened the doors at F I had 25 minutes until pushback at A-West, my luggage of course never made it across the pond until the next day.

If I was your son, I'd leave the connection the way it is but ensure there is a fallback US to CUN for later in the day. US seem to be masters at squirming out of providing hotels for misconnecting pax.

As above its certainly possible unless a really long delay develops. Just tell him not to hang around and get over to the other gate asap. Also to try get a seat as close to the front section of Y as possible unless he is in F of course.

Just curious to know what the relation of this question to BMI is ;)

Hi.
I Have always found most people on the BMI forum to be knowledgeable, helpful and gracious with their time to answer people with a travel query as the 2nd and 3rd replies prove.

Thanks to DELLAS and BHDBOY - I appreciate your advice.

Regards Cal

We've had a few good answers, so it's time to move this thread from bmi to its permanent home - the Mid-Atlantic USA forum, where we may see further helpful responses from the kindly folks there.

Thread moved. :)

If the inbound flight is in the late afternoon or early evening, you may want to try for an earlier connection. One hour and ten minutes is do-able under normal circumstances--an F gate implies he's coming in on an RJ, which shouldn't take much time to deplane, and then the walk/bus trip across to A-West should take about 15 minutes. However, PHL has issues with excess traffic that can delay landings and gate access at peak times of day. If the inbound flight is delayed and the plane has trouble finding an open gate, it could get tricky.

Thanks
He arrives from LGA at 08.25 am Friday on a DHC dash and is ticketed through to CUN so no luggage
regards cal

[fingers crossed]That should be fine.[/fingers crossed] By that hour, the gates at Terminal F should have emptied out a bit (there are tons of flights going out between 7-8 AM). And being on the first flight of the day is usually the best way to get an on-time arrival.

Well, you definitely don't want to walk from F to A because that means you'll have to reclear security.

I meant for him to walk through Terminal F and then take the bus to A, then walk more to A-West. Combining the walking and the bus ride is about 15 minutes, give or take.