40 Minute Layover?
 

I bought some tickets from Seattle to Melbourne, Australia back in November for next month, and they changed the flights. When I entered my passport number into Qantas I noticed they changed my flights so that I only have a 40 minute layover in LA before I connect to my flight to Melbourne.

Will this be enough time? I've never actually been to LAX before so I don't know the layout, nor have I ever had that short of a layover so I'm not sure if my bags will make it.

I'm thinking about either calling Qantas to reschedule, or just going and buying some insurance on my bags in case they get lost if they don't make it with me (if I make it at all).

Who are you flying from Seattle to LAX?

Seattle to LAX is Alaska Airlines, LAX to Melbourne is Qantas.

A couple things come to mind and hopefully some other FTers will be along to answer.

At the very least you're going to be arriving in a different terminal than you'll be departing from, and that may involve reclearing security. If you have to reclear security your new itinerary is not going to work, even without bags, as they do not board up until the very last minute. I don't know if there is a shuttle bus inside the secure area, but even if there is your bags would need to make it to an entirely different terminal, along with you, and that won't happen if you have 40 mins to departure of your international flight. Hopefully someone that flies Alaska from LAX can advise on the shuttle bus in the secure area.

Have you asked whoever ticketed you if you can move to an earlier Alaska flight? That would seem to be the easiest solution. I had a change on an AA/Qantas trip coming up and received phone calls from both Qantas and AA, as well as e-mail from AA, so I'm surprised no one alerted you about the schedule change.

Some Qantas flights go out of T4 (AA terminal) and others go out of the international terminal. Alaska is in T3.

Bleh, you would think the easiest way would be getting an earlier Alaska flight, but unfortunately I had to buy a separate set of tickets from Alaska Airlines to get from SE Alaska to Seattle as Qantas wouldn't let me book from there.

It's an eight hour layover in Seattle so maybe I'll get lucky and buy myself four hours or so but I'm not holding my breath.

I'm confused. Is your SEA-LAX a continuation of the ticket you have booked from the state of Alaska? If so, I'd call Alaska and ask what is costs to change to an earlier SEA-LAX. You really need to confirm something, versus standing by at the gate for a seat, so that your bags go with you. If you miss the Qantas flight, and are flying on separate tickets, you're pretty much at their mercy if you miss the flight. I would not want to be in that situation as you could end up not flying at all.

Another option would be to overnight at LAX and pay Qantas a change fee to push your Australia flight back one day.

Now, if Qantas sold you the ticket that includes the SEA-LAX segment, it should be easy enough to change by phone. There are "minimum connecting times" from domestic to international and I doubt 40 minutes falls within the acceptable range when a terminal change is involved.

SEA-LAX-MEL was bought through Qantas. JNU-SEA was bought through Alaska Airlines.

Hi,

Assuming you are on QF 93/94 to MEL;


http://www.qantas.com.au/travel/airl...eles/global/en

you will need to get from T3 ( Alaska ) to tom bradley intl terminal ( QF) and reclear security.
Even though the terminals are beside each other the security clearance will take time, QF will board with at least 40mins to go and the gate will probably close at T-20 or T-10.

I would phone Qantas and get on the earlier flight from SEA-LAX. I do not know if getting the earlier flight would have an impact on your connecting time at SEA from your flight from JNU.

Regards

TBS

is there an earlier flight to lax w/i your 8 hr connection?, if so get qf to change to the earlier flight.....

have you called qantas?, if not, pick up the phone....good luck...

You need to call Qantas (QF) and have them rebook you on an earlier AS flight from Seattle. Another alternative: you can ask to be rebooked to SFO and then on to SYD and MEL.

In any case QF is responsible for rebooking you. 40 mins will probably not be enough time.

If your JNU-SEA tix are impacted by what they (QF) offers, get all 3 airlines on the phone and try to work it out.

Let us know how it goes.

Worked out pretty well! I had an 8 hour layover in Seattle, and lucky me, there was a flight going from SEA>LAX about five hours after I arrived in Seattle. So I bought some more time to go to LAX, re-clear security, and probably get a little lost.

It was a little bit of a pain because I had to call Qantas, and then Qantas called Alaska Airlines, but now everything looks to be in working order on my online itinerary. It does say I have two flights to LAX though :D

If your itinerary shows two flights for the same city-pair (SEA-LAX), there's still a problem. Having a double booking could cause the airline to (possibly automatically) cancel both reservations. The later flight should have been cancelled when you were changed to your current later flight from SEA to LAX. Also, you need to check that the reservation (itinerary) matches the flights listed on your eticket, which probably should have been reissued (for free).

Personally, rather than still having five hours in SEA and only three in LAX, I would have tried to get an even earlier flight from SEA to LAX for your flight to SYD. I'd rather have the extra cushion of time at LAX, which would also give the possibility, if your flight from SEA to LAX were to be cancelled or badly delayed, of being put onto another flight from SEA to LAX so as to still make the SYD flight.

However, my advice in the second paragraph just above would probably change if you cannot check your luggage through from Alaska to Sydney, assuming that you plan to check a bag rather than taking only carry-on for the entire outbound trip. If your airline from Alaska to Seattle doesn't have an interline agreement, you will need to exit the secure area, claim your luggage in Seattle, then go to the ticket counter to recheck it, and finally reclear security. There's also the argument of allowing extra time because separate tickets are involved, so that the airlines have less obligation to help if a delay on the flight out of Alaska would cause you to miss the flight in Seattle.

AS has a boatload of flights from SEA-LAX. I would suggest trying to go even earlier for reasons others have said. While T3 and Tom Bradley International are right next to each other, going through security at TB can be an ordeal as it does get quite busy at times. If your flight from SEA into LAX is delayed, you could once again find yourself pressed for time.