fairhsa

We are in Vancouver waiting for relatives coming from Australia on Qantas via San Francisco. Minimum connect time 1 hr45 - Qantas connection 1hr50. Needless to say they missed their connection. Spent about 2 hours in an immigration queue.

Why does Qantas sell an itinerary it cannot honour? Why does it not help people in the queue ffs? Whole situation is crazy. Airport has a minimum connection time it cannot honour.

Dave Noble

Did Qantas put you on the next flight after you missed the connection? If it did, then you are no worse off than if the MCT was higher - however could not have got the earlier flight if all had gone as expected

1:45 is assumedly a connection time that generally works

In this case immigration took a long while

If concerned with connecitons, why not book a non-stop flight?

og

Dave Noble

No one has to book the minimum connection , if not happy with the risks

The airline is prepared to accept the risk and seems unlikely that the airline would allow it when it commonly wouldn't work due to the work invoved in rebooking

Looking at the flight times, the QF flight is scheduled to arrive at 14:00

There is a WS flight at 15:50, a UA flight at 16:10 and then AC at 16:50; the next optios is 19:10 and 19:30

Given the choice between getting away at 15:50 an arriving at 18:09 or waiting until 19:10 ( to allow 3 hours ) , I would take the gamble.

If I wasn't happy with the risks, I would just book the non stop flight - Given that there was an opportunity to avoid immigration in the USA, I would have taken that - USA is a lousy place to connect imo

fairhsa

Yes, on a flight 3 hours later in a LOWER travel class than booked. My 80 year old mother was so stressed when she finally arrived. We'd paid business class for her to make it easier - the routing was determined by the fact her other son was with her so it was deemed better to go through USA with company than direct alone. (not my call, I would have made a different one). But at the end of the days, selling something unachievable is stupid. I looked at the average immigration wait times wile we were waiting to find out what was going on.... 56 minutes with a max of over 100 minutes! so 1 hr 50 connection is just crazy.

nancypants

Dave Noble

It is not unachievable - you were just unable to manage it that specific instance

you could have chosen to book a longer connection time if you had wished to do so

If it was unachievable , the airline would not offer it due to spending time every day dealing with it

moondog

I would argue that SFO arrival and connection is far more stressful than J v Y on an A320 for 2 hours.

silverforumsurf

lokijuh

I am guessing US citizens might be able to manage the connection a bit easier, as wouldn't take as long in immigration. However, probably also would guess not so many travelling on to YVR. Not possible to have different MCT's based on nationality, but US is certainly one place where it would make sense to do so

og

BearX220

I dunno. Passengers concerned with en route stress reduction should not book a connection through a US gateway in the first place. We are not set up to process international-to-international passengers like other countries' airports.

og

Globaliser

In fact, they have much to lose by selling a connection that's unachievable - it inevitably costs money because of the need to reaccommodate etc. So airlines have a real incentive not to sell a connection that is unrealistically short. It's likely that at the published MCT, most passengers will make it most of the time. I'll bet that the OP's accusations that QF "cannot" honour the connection and that it is "unachievable" are based on nothing more than that one isolated anecdote. But all that that anecdote shows is that it didn't work for that passenger that day - it doesn't even mean that other passengers didn't make it that day, let alone show what happens on other days.

That is not to downplay the stress that a missed connection can cause an individual, particularly if they're not experienced or relaxed travellers, or for other reasons might get stressed about a mishap when travelling. For them, there is always one clear number one piece of advice: don't book a short connection. The airline does not guarantee that you will make a connection at MCT, or even at MCT+3 hours or MCT+6 hours. But it is inevitable that the closer you get to MCT, the more likely it is that something will go wrong.

BearX220

Exactly, but no US arrival airport is set up like this -- such volume is too low to warrant the dedicated infrastructure -- which is why the experience is best avoided.