jsloan

UA-UA "Domestic Canada" (post-preclearance) to international at DEN has a 45 minute minimum connection. So, no, it's not a legal connection -- and I wouldn't want to risk it even if it were. You can lose your seat if you're not at the DEN-NRT gate 30 minutes before departure. That gives you five minutes to deplane and get to your gate, even if the flight is exactly on time.

wh6cto

A couple of YVR-BKK reroute options:

YVR-SFO-NRT is possible, but I hate flying thru SFO nowdays because of all the runway construction delays. Delayed departure out of SFO can mess up your NRT-BKK flight.

YVR-LAX-NRT may be better. Timing is similar, and LAX-NRT is also B787 (so still 9-across in the back). First segment will be AC, though.

WineCountryUA

SFO runaway closures for work have completed. Project is essentially done -- just some weekend overnight cleanup.

Kacee

Narrower fuselage than the 777s, so 9 across on the 788s is very similar to 10 across in the 77W (width listed by UA as 17.3 on the 788 vs. 17.05 on the 77W and 18.1 on the 772)

Aliquot

Does this actually happen? I always choose the shortest possible connections and have often been the last person to board a full flight, but have never had my seat given away. The gate agents can see that you are on an incoming flight. I would be very angry if this happened. Maybe if you take an unusally long time to get from arrival gate to departure gate?

I've seen seats given away for passages who eventually show up, but they have always been originating passengers.

jsloan

Yes, it absolutely happens. Yes, the GA can see that you're connecting, and then they'll make a judgement call about whether or not you'll arrive. I was on a flight from ORD one time where the gate agents offloaded several people because their inbound from FCO was delayed, only to have a mess when our flight went MX during boarding and we had an aircraft and gate swap -- and the FCO pax arrived. (In this case, the gate agents proactively removed the pax due to the pending misconnect as they were seated in F and they wanted to clear the upgrade list. There was no chance the FCO pax were going to make it -- until the MX).

If you are not at the gate at T-15 (domestic) or T-30 (international), you risk losing your seat. That risk is the price you pay for scheduling tight connections, and I sincerely hope that the "anger" you'd have would be directed at yourself rather than at the gate agents who are following published policy. :-) Keep in mind that the standby list, if any, will be cleared at these times; also, there's more paperwork for international flights, plus positive bag match requires that they pull the luggage for any no-shows.

747FC

Yes, it does.

I am still angry about an incident that occurred 20 years ago when a delayed inbound flight caused me to run to my connecting flight. The gate agent had literally just closed the door as I got there, and refused to open it back up for me. United had to pay for a hotel room and food because the agent did not want to spend the five minutes it would have taken to get me on board.

TominLazybrook

My personal 'favorite'...giving away your seat because 'you can't make it', then not telling you that they did it, so that you run through the airport and make it to the gate while boarding is still going on....and your boarding pass is invalid. That happened to me on another airline (Delta).

My understanding that American has really made 'leaving on time' a huge priority which is resulting in larger number of people misconnecting.

EmailKid

Yup,

plenty of posts where flight was oversold, and at T-15 or T-30 respectively pax were offloaded to avoid paying VDB.

CIT85

I had a schedule change where my mainline flights were all changed to UAX flights, times were 5 minutes difference.

I was able to ask for later flight options (which I preferred) where 1 segment was mainline on the premise that the equipment changes were undesirable. Agent had to ask supervisor for permission and allowed the change because I'm 1K.

WineCountryUA

UA CoC defines as so your request was inline with the CoC.

djohannw

I'm not suggesting you are telling something wrong, but why is UA then selling D-I connections at IAH with a 35 minute layover? It is impossible to make it to the gate before T-30 on such a connection even if the flight arrives perfectly on time...getting of the plane takes five minutes alone, and then there is the way from Cx to Ex - probably another 10 minutes.

Flight in my case is FLL-IAH-LHR on 11/4, UA388 arrives IAH at 8:45p with UA5 departing at 9:20p. Can be booked this way on united.com.

Greetings - Dirk

EmailKid

I've seen those connections at IAH before

My guess is that IT didn't program well enough to realize / recognize that LHR is Int'l and uses domestic MCT.

And several years ago I've booked and made several 30 connections on domestic itin, but NEVER on last flight of the day @:-)

sfo789

TL;DR: Just because .bomb offers a legal route, doesn't mean it's at all sensible.

In more detail: It is practically unlikely that you lose your seat till ~T-15 in most cases, even if connecting to intl; sometimes you get more slack if GAs see you're connecting. That said, if you face any delay on your first leg, you'll probably miss your connection. Worse, if IAH-LHR (or equivalent second leg) is oversold, agents will save on VDB cash by deboarding you at T-30 (as is their right).

On a perfect day for WX, with at least one later IAH-LHR backup in case of a miss, and a burning need to stay late in XXX, I would fly XXX-IAH-LHR with a 35 min connect. I appreciate that UA will offer that option to the SDCer/FF who understands the risks and nonetheless wants it. But I would never, ever book anyone else on that route.

jsloan

The charitable way to look at it is "somebody didn't think it all the way through when they set up the Minimum Connection Time table at IAH." The cynical way is "UA wanted to offer enticing connections and then deal with rebooking later." Feel free to choose whichever interpretation you prefer. :-)

The UA Contract of Carriage gives the gate requirements (Rule 5(D)2.b. : All Passengers must be at the loading gate for boarding at least 30 minutes prior to scheduled departure. (It then notes some foreign airports that require 60 minutes).

This is the remedy UA gives itself: "UA has the right to cancel reservations (whether or not confirmed), deny boarding and/or refuse the acceptance of checked baggage of any Passenger who fails to present himself/herself within the applicable check-in or loading gate time limits for Passengers and/or Baggage."

Again, I'm not saying that they will do this in every case, especially not domestically. But they can. I would never advise anyone to try to make a 35-minute D-I connection at IAH. I don't even like making 35-minute D-D connections at IAH. :-)