Your opinion needed...
 

^Hi,

I need your opinion on a tight connection in DTW: I'll arrive on AF374/DL8572 (which has a bad punctually record) and would like to connect to NW71 to MNL. I admit, it's a crazy way to fly from Europe to MNL, but it's kinda milage-run... and the itinerary below would be actually cheaper (on two separate tickets) than a RTW. The other problem is: I'll have checked luggage and I'm not sure if DL/AF can check it through with a connection on NW.

FYI, this would be my complete itinerary:
Ticket 1: DL8450 ZRH (7.20 am)-CDG 2/23/07 (9.00 am)
Ticket 1: DL8572 CDG (10.20 am)-DTW 2/23/07 (1.10 pm)
Ticket 2: NW71 DTW (2.40 pm)-MNL 2/23/07 (*10.50 pm)
Ticket 2: NW72 MNL (6.50 am)-DTW 3/12/07 (12.05 pm)
Ticket 2: NW999 DTW (1.37 pm)-MIA 3/12/07 (4.39 pm)
Ticket 1: DL710 MIA (2.08 pm)-ATL 3/19/07 (4.14 pm)
Ticket 1: DL66 ATL (5.00 pm)-ZRH 3/19/07 (*7.10 am)

Lot's of questions, thanks already for your advice! ^
Michael

I personally would prefer 2 hours minimum to connect from an international flight in DTW. My experience in getting through customs and re-screen security you can push the 45-60 minute mark and I always fly buisiness class, so I am in the front in the plane. It can be done within the 70 minute window but you to plan for late arrivals and such... The good news is that Flt 71 usually leaves from one of the gates near the exit from customs & immigration.

Because you are on two separate tickets I am not sure that you can check luggage all the way through to MNL and you may need to allow time to recheck it before your next flight. If you can not check it all the way through then I would just do a carry-on, as I do not recall facilities to re-check baggage with other airlines down there. (I am not usually looking for that service though).

DTW is actually a pretty nice place to hang out also, there are a lot of restaurants and shops to occupy your time.

My opinion is titles should describe the thread's contents.

Keep in mind that when you land in DTW, you will need to claim your luggage, clear US customs, and then recheck it anyway. Therefore, whether DL/AF can through-check your luggage to NW is essentially irrelevant. You need to claim your luggage and put it on a belt after customs anyway, so the only difference is whether you need to stop at a ticket counter first.

Don't check luggage. Honest answer.

Thank you for your more ore less discouraging opinions. It made me think over my itinerary and I actually changed it to ZRH-SFO, SFO-MNL etc. with a one night stop-over in SFO. This routing in Delta T-class was actually $ 60 cheaper than my first itinerary. And with adjusting my NWA flight from SFO to a Thursday, I saved another $ 60 in Q-class… ^ :-: