35 min. connection time???

[Katy Belle]

I'm trying to book a flight from Omaha to Orlando. I want the best of all worlds, of course. I want to leave Omaha early-ish and arrive in Orlando with time to play at WDW that evening. I'm pulling up lots of flights with connection times of 35 minutes. Yikes. Is that enough time to actually make your connection? We fly internationally a lot and I always give us at least a 90 min. connection. I'd hate to miss the connecting flight. Tell me your experiences!

TIA
Katy

 

[Piglet4Ever]

I usually like to have at least an hour in between flights, just in case first flight is late, ect... Last year I flew from WA state to OH with a 30 min layover in Denver, my first flight was on time but I had to run like a madwoman across the airport to reach my next flight, and just made it. I will never do that again!!

 

[MickeyMonstersMom]

Last year I started with a 50-minute connection time, which was whittled to 25 minutes by flight changes by the time our departure day arrived. Then our flight was delayed in landing, leaving us ten minutes to take a monorail to another terminal, race down one escalator, down (what felt like) several hallways, and back up another escalator. We stumbled up to the gate, exhausted and stressed to the point of sobbing, just as the rep was closing the door. I will never set myself up for something like that again! In fact, our last flight had a three-hour layover and we happily explored the airport and had a leisurely meal. We've decided that it's much better to get there later than we'd like than arrive stressed and aching - or to miss the connecting flight entirely.

 

[goofy4tink]

I usually like to have at least an hour in between flights, just in case first flight is late, ect... Last year I flew from WA state to OH with a 30 min layover in Denver, my first flight was on time but I had to run like a madwoman across the airport to reach my next flight, and just made it. I will never do that again!!

I've made that same run!! It isn't fun.
Dh and dd are connecting at JFK on Tuesday night...Boston to JFK to Orlando. After checking the flights for the past few days, the flights arriving into JFK have gotten in late but the flights leaving have been a bit late too. Here's hoping that 50 minutes they have will be sufficient!! Hate it when I book a direct flight and they change it. At least there is no checked luggage to worry about.

 

[zuzu310]

Here is hoping that we all make our connecting flights. I am in a similiar situation as my DH and I have a 45 min. layover in O'Hare this September. I have never even been to O'Hare. Anyways, we are praying that our first flight does not get delayed and that since both flights are on the same carrier (Untited) that the next flight will be in the same concourse. We are arrivng in O'Hare at 7:30am on a Sat. so I hope that decreases our liklihood of being delayed.

 

[debster812]

I've made that same run!! It isn't fun.
Dh and dd are connecting at JFK on Tuesday night...Boston to JFK to Orlando. After checking the flights for the past few days, the flights arriving into JFK have gotten in late but the flights leaving have been a bit late too. Here's hoping that 50 minutes they have will be sufficient!! Hate it when I book a direct flight and they change it. At least there is no checked luggage to worry about.

Are you flying JetBlue? If you are, once you land in JFK, the walk from the gate where the BOS-JFK flights land, to where the JFK-MCO flights take off, is literally 5 minutes, if you S T R O L L... DS and I just did this in April, and I had booked us with 2 hour layovers, and 45 minutes would have been MORE than sufficient. Esp since the flight from BOS to JFK is on the schedule as being almost 90 minutes, when the reality is, it was 32 minutes from wheels up, to wheels down.

To the OP--I think a 35 minute connect to start is cutting it a bit close.

 

[chris1gill]

FORGET IT!!! Yes, it's possible your flight will actually be on time & you will actually have 35 minutes to get to your other gate where people will have already started boarding..... But it's also possible your flight will be twenty minutes delayed & you will miss the last call for boarding....

We had ninety minutes in LA in January & can you believe we did not make the connection?? Our flight was delayed 90 minutes at our originating location & we had to stay in LA overnight... it was lousy...

 

[goofy4tink]

Are you flying JetBlue? If you are, once you land in JFK, the walk from the gate where the BOS-JFK flights land, to where the JFK-MCO flights take off, is literally 5 minutes, if you S T R O L L... DS and I just did this in April, and I had booked us with 2 hour layovers, and 45 minutes would have been MORE than sufficient. Esp since the flight from BOS to JFK is on the schedule as being almost 90 minutes, when the reality is, it was 32 minutes from wheels up, to wheels down.

To the OP--I think a 35 minute connect to start is cutting it a bit close.

Thanks Deb....My dh has flown into JFK before and says he isn't concerned either. Says it's just a quick walk from gate to gate. After all, it's not as though he's at Logan going from Terminal A to Terminal C!!! They have about 50 minutes, so if the flight arrives close to on-time it should be okay. I did double check to see how they went yesterday, and the flights from Boston were about 10 minutes late getting into JKF, but the flight from Rochester NY was late also, and that's the flight they have to connect with.

 

[Katy Belle]

Thanks everybody! I'm going to find a longer layover. There is no way I could be relaxed knowing that we had such a short time. With 3 little boys we aren't very fast.
Thanks again!
Katy

 

[Lewisc]

Are booking on the airline's website? They have "legal" connection times for every airport. You're taking an early morning flight? Does the airline have later flights from the connecting airport to MCO? If so I'd book the short connecting time. Much better than waiting around the airport and the airline can accomodate you on a later flight if necessary. Just make sure you go to the bathroom on your first flight, you might not have much time at the connecting airport.

 

[cavepig]

We are flying from Omaha to Orlando next Friday on Midwest and says we only have a 25 minute connection. We change plans in Milwaukee and I don't think we'll have a problem since Midwest is good about people and connections. We leave here at 5:50 am and we'll get into Orlando 11:05 am. Perfect times. So, you might want to check out midwest.com for flights.

 

[Servants of Evan]

One additional thing to keep in mind: A flight's arrival time is not the time at which people are able to deplane but rather it's the moment when the wheels first hit the ground out on the runway. At any typical airport, you can still have several minutes of taxiing in, waiting for your gate to clear, waiting for the jetway to be put into place, etc. Even with everything operating "on time" you can still easily have that 35 minute window narrowed down to 20 or less. Add a slight delay to your arrival and you're hosed...

 

[DebbieB]

One additional thing to keep in mind: A flight's arrival time is not the time at which people are able to deplane but rather it's the moment when the wheels first hit the ground out on the runway. At any typical airport, you can still have several minutes of taxiing in, waiting for your gate to clear, waiting for the jetway to be put into place, etc. Even with everything operating "on time" you can still easily have that 35 minute window narrowed down to 20 or less. Add a slight delay to your arrival and you're hosed...

That's not correct. The departure and arrival times are based on when the plane leaves or arrives at the gate. I fly often for work and find they "pad" these times, their "on time performance" is based on the time arriving at the gate. More often than not we arrive at the gate before the scheduled time, but then you have to allow for time to get the jetway in place and get off the plane.

When they talk about "flight time", they mean the time from when the wheels leave the ground until they touch down. So if the pilot says "our flight time today is 4 hours", it means wheels up to wheels down.

 

[disneyeveryyear]

Here is hoping that we all make our connecting flights. I am in a similiar situation as my DH and I have a 45 min. layover in O'Hare this September. I have never even been to O'Hare. Anyways, we are praying that our first flight does not get delayed and that since both flights are on the same carrier (Untited) that the next flight will be in the same concourse. We are arrivng in O'Hare at 7:30am on a Sat. so I hope that decreases our liklihood of being delayed.

We flew United last month with a layover in Chicago. It was much more than 45 minutes however.

I did look on the website to try to determine which gates we would land and depart from. Since we came in on a commuter flight, it was in a concourse quite far away from our departure gate. If you go to United.com and input your flight numbers like you were checking on flights from today, it will tell you which gates they are using. Then you can either rest easy or start practicing your sprints!