benji2227

As long as a delay and a rebooking/sleepover isn't catastrophic for your plans back home, I'd go for it.

Swiss even lets you book 40min connections and I've managed 25min without problem.

ZRH is a great airport.

Thamesport

Using United miles for business class BOS-ZRH-FCO. Connection time is 65 minutes. My husband has Parkinson's and uses wheelchair assistance. Is this doable or am I better going through FRA on LH with more time? Thanks.

YuropFlyer

Doable. It will include change of terminal, but ZRH usually is quite efficent. They'll probably transfer you directly to the departure Gate (most probably in A) from your Arrival in Gate E.

I guess your problem would be that you can't hurry - ie, a relatively small delay might already be troublesome, as you will be the last ones out of the airplane when needing assistance. With a delay smaller than 15min or so, that should still be OK, but I absolutely understand your concern.

On the other hand, if you're missing your connection to MXP, they will put you on the next flight, so if you are OK with that, then it wouldn't be a gamebreaker.

Your flight into ZRH is arriving late morning, isn't it? In that case, there should be other options to MXP later in the day. I'd probably go with that..

On the other hand, what kind of flight do you take back to BOS? If it's LX too, then it might be interesting to fly LH first, to sample both of them and do some comparison. Both products are about equal, with some differences.

DealAddict

Thinking of doing LCY-ZRH and ZRH-BOS on separate tickets to avoid UK APD. Is it too risky? Flight from London would get in to ZRH at 9:30. Departure out of ZRH would be at 12:55. This would be in August. Thoughts?

benji2227

You could arrive up to 3 hours late and still manage it. I'd go for it

Just ask the check-in agent in LCY to transfer your luggage directly to BOS.

DealAddict

You mean I would still make it even if I arrived at 12:30? That would leave me with 25 mins Checking on-time stats, I don't think the first flight has ever had extreme delays

Also, would what you say work even if flights are on separate airlines. First one is with British Airways, second with Swiss? Or is it if both flights are on Swiss

EDIT - I think my first flight will have to be on Swiss for that to work. So any concern with connecting if the first flight is on British Airways?

benji2227

I've already had 25 min in ZRH to connect, worked fine! Less might be a struggle. Note that Swiss sells tickets with connection time down to 40min!

For some obscure reason I once had to take a flight from SOF to VIE, VIE-PRG (Austrian) and then PRG-ZRH (Swiss), on separate tickets, asked for luggage transfer from SOF to ZRH at check-in and worked beautifully.

I don't know if it works with BA since non-StarAlliance, but might do!

Reply to your EDIT : my guess is that it might work, you can easily phone up and check! If not, it's still doable but the flight better not be more than 1h30 delayed (still a rare case). Arrival belts to Swiss check-in desks in ZRH is the easiest thing ever. So I don't see it as a big issue either.
Arrival at 11:00, get your luggage at 11:30, check-in at 11:45, gives you 1:10 to hop on, with a 1H30 delay. Doable.

DealAddict

OK, I'll risk it. Booked separate ticket from LCY into ZRH. Hopefully it will not bite me in the butt .Still, I think this should be doable in the summer.

About 300 Canadian dollars in APD saved by booking LCY-ZRH separately from the ZRH-BOS leg.

benji2227

It's statistically more than worth while. Good move!

JShLin

So I'm in the same boat here... I have a 45 minute connection, going to IST from EWR. Problem is that EWR leg is a Friday, late afternoon departure on UA. I'm not too bothered if i miss my connection, as there are later flights. But should I even bother considering checking a bag?

DealAddict

If it's the same ticket why not? You'd just be rebooked on the next flight...

JShLin

The problem isn't if -I'll- make the connection, as I'm pretty confident that I can, but if my checked bag will.

YuropFlyer

ZRH is fairly efficent, and while LX only has 1 flight a day to IST (on most days), TK does fly the route plenty.. so even if they don't manage to load your bag into the LX plane, it will ride just a few hours behind you..

Just don't put anything in it that you'll need immediately (as you never should, anyway) and you're fine checking it.

lkar

Trying to figure out whether inbound is likely to be a jet bridge to A/B or a bus gate. Is a Helvetic E190 more likely to be a bus gate?

PetzLUX

In my experience:
E190 more often at jet bridge.
F100 40:60 (jet bridge:apron)