Generally, almost anytime any airport has flights going on, there will be at least some food places available. You may not find everything open, but I doubt you will starve.

At 24 hours out, you can do online check-in as well on nwa.com and be able to select those seats towards the front. As it's been noted, Thanksgiving is a very light travel day and the few elites on that flight will most likely be sitting in First Class, so those seats in the front of coach should be pretty wide open to choose from.

There will most certainly be food places open. It might be limited and some places might be closed, but they'll have some places open.

Also, if you get to MSP and it looks like there is going to be a delay of any sort, get rerouted before getting on the plane to DTW. There's a 730a departure on Delta to Cincinnati with a (slightly) longer layover of 40 minutes. There's also a 730a flight to Atlanta with a 50 minute layover in Atlanta that gets into Norfolk around 115p. If anything pops up in MSP, go to an agent and try to get on one of those flights.

Yikes! The layover is 36 minutes, which is actually 21 minutes since you need to be at your gate what, 15 minutes prior to departure.

Sometimes the tram is out of service. So if you have a long job down the A concourse, this might be an issue.

If you are flying on any "regional jet" that jet is going to park at B/C - except for the E175's.

Not only do you have a potential walk, the DTW Gate Wait can be horrible. I think they take people who have never operated the jet bridge and make them go at it until they get good at it. Then they replace them with someone who isn't.

Firstly, welcome to FT!

As others have said, DTW is laid out in two very long termainls - A is where mainline flights operated by Delta or Northwest are from, and B/C is where regional flights ("Delta Connection" - Pinnacle, Mesaba, etc.) depart from. Worst case, you'll arrive at one end of A from MSP, take a shuttle train to the middle, then walk through a tunnel, then walk the length of either B or C until you reach your ORF flight.

DTW is actually my favorite hub in the Delta system - gorgeous new facility and (assuming the weather's nice) a comparative breeze to get in and out of compared to, say, ATL. DTW has great businesses located in the airport - I was once stuck there after a medical emergency delayed an NRT-DTW flight and had the fortune of staying in the Westin, which stood up well in hospitality even to the lavish Tokyo hotel I'd been staying in on the trip. Although you're unlikely to have time to visit them, there are plenty of familiar fast food options, too - a McDonald's near the center of A with surprisingly friendly staff and (my favorite) a Taco Bell near one of the ends of A.

I've made 35 minute B-A connections in DTW - they're definitely "legal" (each airline has a minimum connect time that they won't sell you tickets outside of). The advice to plan ahead is sound - if your MSP-DTW flight looks to be significantly delayed, don't hesitate to check with a gate agent about changing to a different set of flights. A smartphone can be helpful if you want to do your homework - a site like seatcounter.com can show you what alternate flights are available, which can be good for letting you ask for a specific rebooking.

Bottom line - a big advantage of flying a network carrier like DL/NW is that you've got lots of options for getting to most destinations, so I wouldn't sweat it too much. Enjoy your flights!

Most "will I make my connection" queries in FT will get you a range of responses from "Yikes" to "Don't sweat it" - and as you might guess, it probably tells a lot about how folks handle things beyond their control!

I'm a pretty thrifty kind of guy, so it would have to be something "way beyond major" for me to consider paying a change fee just because of a close connection.

HOWEVER...I have had times when a schedule change allowed me to ask for a more favorable routing at no charge! :cool: (A move I learned from fellow FlyerTalkers of course)

My vote (which says more about me than your schedule) - don't sweat it!

I agree with Watchful. I have made a 25 minute connection in DTW, but it really depends. What matters is that if you don't make your connection, you'll eventually get to your destination for no extra charge.

DTW is a very nice airport; one of my favorites.

Thank you again everyone for your responses. I'll definitely report back to you all and let you know how everything works out. I'm not going to worry about it. It sounds like I should be ok as long as my flight is on time.

Not bad advice, but at DTW, NW, Delta (and for now CO) are at one terminal and everyone else is at a different one and it takes at least an hour to go between terminals.

At the NW terminal, you can get between any two gates in about 10 minutes, so your connection should be fine.

One tip, while the plane is taxing in from the runway, call the 800 number to get flight status for your next flight.

Bob H

Thanks Bobh. I will definitely do that!