Changing terminals in Philadelphia

[leebee]

Hi! I am not familiar with the airport in Philadelphia. My flight will come in to terminal F (American Airlines) and I would have to change terminals for the connecting flight. I don't know what terminal that will be, but I would have a 48 minutes. One adult, no kids. Is this even worth considering? What worries me is that the connection is the last flight of the day to the destination (Cleveland). Would you do this, or does it take forever to change flights in Philly?

 

[WishICouldSpeakWhale]

I live near Philly, so I don't change planes there. You'll likely need to get from F terminal to B or C and I think that requires a shuttle. If the airline gives this as a valid itinerary, you should be able to make it, but it seems tight to me. Especially when there isn't another flight to put you on.

I just reread and see that you are one adult, no kids, so I think you can do it. It would be too tight if you had kids. On an AA flight from LAX to Philly that was late, they made sure to let people with connections off first.

All that said, I don't think I'd book it if it was me. Was that a long-winded answer, or what?

 

[mcall12]

Hi! I am not familiar with the airport in Philadelphia. My flight will come in to terminal F (American Airlines) and I would have to change terminals for the connecting flight. I don't know what terminal that will be, but I would have a 48 minutes. One adult, no kids. Is this even worth considering? What worries me is that the connection is the last flight of the day to the destination (Cleveland). Would you do this, or does it take forever to change flights in Philly?

There is a shuttle that runs from terminal F to A and another that runs to B/C (that’s how it was set up last I used it). The shuttles *should* run every 5 minutes but depending on the time of day may take longer. I probably wouldn’t do it if I absolutely had to make that connection to be somewhere by a certain time, but if everything goes exactly right you should make it. Possibly to a flight already boarding.

 

[leebee]

I know my husband's luck, and the incoming flight he's looking at is late 24% of the time. We're gonna come up with a different plan!

 

[richmo]

This from PHL's website:

If you are in the post-security checkpoint area, you can connect to any terminal without having to go in and out of security a second time. There is also a free shuttle bus that operates secure side between Terminal F and Terminal C and Terminal A-East.

You can walk from F to B/C, which is the most likely scenario if both flights are on American. It's not a short walk, so I wouldn't want too tight a connection. Nor sure how often the mentioned shutlle bus runs...I didn't even know it exists.

 

[Gary2T]

We just had a connection from C to F last month. There is a shuttle bus that runs between the two. When we boarded at C there was another bus pulling up to the load station as we pulled away. We had to wait a minute or two pulling into F for another bus to depart. We didn't have to wait for a bus to come at C either. The bus trip took about 5 minutes total.

48 minutes is still going to be tight. Pretty much no room for any delays, and maybe not even a bathroom stop. Our C to F connection was scheduled for 1hr 9min. That got wiped out by a 55ish minute delay on our inbound. Deplaning from the 2nd to last row in the plane we did the full on run though the terminal with bags to the shuttle bus, then another run from the bus to the gate in F. The gate agent was doing last call/ about to shut the doors as we were 35yards away.