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Most Unrealistic Connection Times

Most Unrealistic Connection Times

Old Aug 13, 2019, 8:40 pm
  #31  
 
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Originally Posted by Athena53
AA changed my schedule coming home from SJC (San Juan del Cabo)
At the risk of being a nitpicky jerk: SJC is San Jose, CA, while San Juan del Cabo is SJD.
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Old Aug 14, 2019, 12:44 am
  #32  
 
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Finnair's 40 minutes at Helsinki is another unachievable one. Even if you are able to bypass immigration and security lines it requires a sprint to get from a longhaul flight to a European one. And heaven help you when your bag misses the connection if you are flying to Berlin.

The handling agent Finnair uses is a complete nightmare. Totally unresponsive and completely unhelpful. My recent HEL connection was shortened to 40 minutes after a flight reschedule. The bag missed the connecting flight - and was loaded on the following one. The tracing system was not updated. After a day of unanswered phone calls and emails I finally retrieved the bag 2 days later by going back to the airport and demanding that the handling agent hand it over.
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Old Aug 14, 2019, 1:29 am
  #33  
 
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Is there a somewhat comprehensive site showing Minimum and Sensible Connecting Times at airports across the world?
Would be handy to have and an excellent resource for us all.
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Old Aug 14, 2019, 6:54 am
  #34  
 
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Originally Posted by gottaluvNW
Is there a somewhat comprehensive site showing Minimum and Sensible Connecting Times at airports across the world?
Would be handy to have and an excellent resource for us all.
Anyone with an ExpertFlyer subscription can look up MCTs for airports around the world.
Whats 'sensible' is up for interpretation as everyone has different factors effecting their travel. Carry-on vs checked bags, fit/quick moving vs slower/mobility restricted, Passport/visa ease of entry, solo or travelling with family, etc... So publishing any sort of 'sensible' recommendation would require continuously erring on the side of caution for every possible hiccup a traveler may encounter.
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Old Aug 14, 2019, 7:19 am
  #35  
 
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I once incurred a schedule change the left me with a 45-minute connection at DFW on AA. I knew that involved a terminal change, because I was switching from Eagle (Terminal B) to mainline (most departures for ORD left from Terminal A).

I got switched to a later departure of ORD, giving me 90 minutes to connect.

Guess what? My Eagle flight was 45 minutes late. Most passengers missed their connections. I made mine.

Back in the days of regulation, my father-in-law used to do a 15-minute connection at ORD. He used to fly Duluth-O'Hare-Cleveland on Northwest. NW had only 4 or 5 games at ORD. And he carried on his briefcase and garment bag. Only if the inbound flight was more than 10 minutes late and the outbound flight was on-time did he miss the connection. So that was about 20% of the time.

Last edited by ckfred; Aug 14, 2019 at 7:28 am Reason: Left out information
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Old Aug 14, 2019, 12:07 pm
  #36  
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Originally Posted by Artagnan
At the risk of being a nitpicky jerk: SJC is San Jose, CA, while San JuanJose del Cabo is SJD.
fixed that for you ...
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Old Aug 15, 2019, 7:44 am
  #37  
 
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It still shocks me that Austrian will book you a 20 minute connection in Vienna.
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Old Aug 16, 2019, 6:10 am
  #38  
 
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Originally Posted by TuxTom
What's 'sensible' is up for interpretation as everyone has different factors affecting their travel. Carry-on vs checked bags, fit/quick moving vs slower/mobility restricted, Passport/visa ease of entry, solo or travelling with family, etc... So publishing any sort of 'sensible' recommendation would require continuously erring on the side of caution for every possible hiccup a traveler may encounter.
I agree with this- too many variables. I'm a bit of a control freak when it comes to travel planning and a lot of factors go into my decision about what's a reasonable connection time. I'd add "consequences of missing the next connection". My home airport is MCI so most of my major trips have at least one connection. Getting to ORD too late to catch my TATL? VERY bad. Missing my flight from DFW to MCI on my way home? I'll shrug and find a hotel. I spend a lot of time in airline lounges on too-long layovers when things go according to schedule but I'm retired and I'm OK with that.

Originally Posted by Artagnan
At the risk of being a nitpicky jerk: SJC is San Jose, CA, while San Jose del Cabo is SJD.
Thanks for this- I kept forgetting the airport code on my trip! (I DID refer to my boarding pass so I got on the right plane.)
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Old Aug 17, 2019, 1:44 pm
  #39  
 
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Anything in New Jersey Transit's timetables suggesting that a 10-minutes-or-less connection is possible at Newark Penn Station en route to New York. The first train is always at least 11 minutes late.
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Old Aug 20, 2019, 8:34 am
  #40  
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Originally Posted by gottaluvNW
Is there a somewhat comprehensive site showing Minimum and Sensible Connecting Times at airports across the world?
Would be handy to have and an excellent resource for us all.
Not public/free. ExpertFlyer offers it but only as a subscription.

Originally Posted by NotSoFrequentColorado
I never accept an international connection time less than 2 hours - any airport in the world
A choice you're free to make, but one that comes with trade-offs. Many onward connections at airports around the world are timed at under two hours. Booking outside of those potentially means very long/overnight stops, fare breaks or other problems that have real costs associated with them.

I booked an unprotected "connection" (i.e. separate flights; I'd be screwed if I missed) of 90 minutes in Zurich last January. I had time to visit the lounge. Ditto a short stop in LHR last summer, coming in from PER and continuing to DUB on separate tickets. I had to be at events at both ends of the trip and that was the flight timing that made it happen. Of course, it could've gone badly and I would have had to pay to fix it. But I went in knowing that risk. I even made a 30 or 40 minute connection in MUC from bus gate to bus gate. I've also had to buy my way out of such problems on a booking with a far longer time between flights.

The reality is that the vast majority of flights on a global scale operate on time, and that the vast majority of passengers make their MCT connections. Maybe there's some stress. Maybe a bit of jogging. But most of the time it all works just fine. Choosing to insure against that by forcing different bookings is optional, and still no guarantee.
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Old Aug 21, 2019, 3:35 pm
  #41  
 
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The FLL/PBI/MIA to DFW afternoon flights are almost always delayed on American, usually by 1+ hour. Many early evening DFW connections are either ~1 hour or ~3+ hours, it can be very frustrating to choose the later ones. Seems they're always just past the 8pm dinner cutoff, too!

The problem is that they book the previous flights to S. Fla with a 45 minute turn in order to make the next bank, which of course they usually don't.
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Old Aug 22, 2019, 11:57 am
  #42  
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When I was flying MCI-DEN-SEA almost weekly, the connection was 36 minutes.

This was an era when I was UA 1K, and there were a bunch of DEN-SEA flights every day, and I never scheduled *too* important a meeting for Monday morning in Seattle. I was always prepared to deal with a misconnect and just work from DEN for a couple hours.

That said, doing it 50+ times over the course of a couple years, I think I only misconnected twice and both times still got to Seattle within a couple hours of original schedule.

Coming home, SEA-DEN-MCI on Thursday night, was closer to a 90-minute connection. Far fewer late DEN-MCI options (this was the pre-WN years), so a 36-minute connection later in the day going east would have been less comforting.
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Old Oct 20, 2019, 9:52 am
  #43  
 
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49 Minutes at Miami

My wife was booked by a convention organizer for a 49 minute connection at Miami, flying American.

I had looked up the arrival from ORD, and it normally arrived 10 too 20 minutes early.

While printing out her boarding passes, AA.Com offered Group 4 Priority boarding for $40. I'm glad I spent the money.

The plane was 10 minutes late into MIA and went into Concourse E. Her departure was at the south end of D

By the time she got to the gate, after taking the train, they had called Group 5. She walked into the Priority lane and got right on.

Coming back was the reverse problem. She had a 4 hour connection at MIA. She could have easily caught an earlier flight, even after going through Customs.
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Old Oct 20, 2019, 4:19 pm
  #44  
 
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I would say that there is no problem with the airline offering any combination of flights and connection times it wants.

But after the flier buys his ticket, should the airline change the schedule to produce a shorter connection time then the flier gets a free reselection of flights after he finds out, to anything that is not sold out, including nonstops, different dates, and different connection cities, no questions asked, or, if nothing else is satisfactory, his choice of a refund, no questions asked.

Last edited by AllanJ; Oct 20, 2019 at 4:26 pm
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Old Oct 20, 2019, 4:41 pm
  #45  
 
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UA offered me 39 min at EWR for a domestic - international connection. During the late afternoon summer thunderstorm season, terminal change required. Needless to say I passed.
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