Ottawa-Montreal-Orlando - how long do we need in Montreal?

[CanadianKrista]

My wonderful direct Ottawa-Orlando Flight for the summer I booked through airmiles was just cancelled by Air Canada. They have put us on a YOW-YUL-MCO flight, but with less than an hour in Montreal. Do we need to clear customs in Montreal? Is this even going to be close to enough time?

 

[lulubell.f]

Hey y'all! Canadian travel agent here:

I have had a client make a connecting flight through Montreal in 35 minutes! It's dicey and depends on the day but if you've got an hour and able bodied people it should be doable! By that, I mean that if anyone in your party has a physical disability (crutches, wheelchair, ecv) or you've got small children with a stroller, you may be cutting it real close. Practice packing up your strollers and luggage in haste, try selecting seats closest to the exit of the plane to make the deboarding faster and make sure your kiddos know you're in a hurry and it's home alone time getting through the airport!

 

[hdrolfe]

Strongly depends on what you are travelling with. Ottawa to Montreal normally ends up at the small gate where you have to go down the stairs and walk across the tarmac to get to the terminal. You won't have room for an overhead bag so if you gate check it you'll have to pick that up. It's then a long walk to Customs, and security before you get to where the US flights are. According to Air Canada's website though you need 55 minutes minimum... so I'm sure you can make it but be prepared to move quickly (so if you have strollers, luggage, etc make sure you can manage it).

 

[hdrolfe]

And on a side note - wow, Air Canada seems to have done away with all their direct to MCO flights over the summer! That really sucks, it was bad enough when Westjet did the same to Fort Lauderdale over winter, we are just losing all kinds of flights

 

[CanadianKrista]

It is 4 of us, but the kids are 9 and 12 - they can move fast

 

[ottawamom]

My wonderful direct Ottawa-Orlando Flight for the summer I booked through airmiles was just cancelled by Air Canada. They have put us on a YOW-YUL-MCO flight, but with less than an hour in Montreal. Do we need to clear customs in Montreal? Is this even going to be close to enough time?

Always watching the YOW-MCO route. Which flight did they cancel.

In the last week, I've had change notifications each day for late April flights with Air Canada. I guess they are tweeking their routes. I love the direct flight from Ottawa. I hope they don't get rid of it altogether.

I wouldn't chance just an hour in Montreal. You will have to clear customs and the flights out of Ottawa (to Toronto and Montreal) are dreadful for being on time. Minimum connection time (per Air Canada) is 55 minutes (domestic - USA). See if they will book another option for you.

Alternatively, you could ask them to change the flight to Montreal - Orlando and just stay overnight in Montreal.

 

[isabellea]

Have you considered driving to Montreal and then catch the direct flight? I live 5 minutes from YUL so cannot help you with connections here but I know the custom line can take a while depending on when you travel and if you have Nexus or not. DH just left for AL Sunday morning and said it was its new favourite time to travel to the USA because there was zero wait at both customs and security. To give you an idea, he always go to the airport at least 2h before for US flights because he never knows how busy customs will be (many business trips during the week).

 

[badiggio]

That looks like you won't make it,imo.Getting off the plane,customs,and usually they close the gate before scheduled departure.You should be able to call them and arrange a better flight with more of a layover.Imo, you would have better luck connecting through toronto,as usually there's flights every hour from ottawa,not so much to montreal.
Other than direct to orlando from Ottawa,i find it so much easier using United,where you do Customs in ottawa and may have a layover in the states,where you just get off one plane and board the next.

 

[ILovePixieDust]

https://www.aircanada.com/ca/en/aco/home/plan/check-in-information/minimum-connection-times.html
If Air Canada made that itinerary for you then they think you can make it. And because it’s one airline and they know you are connecting there is a possibility they hold the plane for you if there are enough other people transferring too. Or if there is a delay in your original flight making it impossible they will reschedule you on the next flight. They did this to us once which was really annoying because we could have still made the flight but they were being overly cautious and we had to stay overnight in Montreal (they paid for hotel).

if you have Nexus then feel even more confident of getting through on time.

 

[CanadianKrista]

55 minutes, their minimum time is exactly what we have. All the flights from Ottawa that day suck now. I'm so disappointed. IT's either short layover in Montreal, short layover in Toronto, or really long layover in Toronto.

 

[CanadianKrista]

Also, it's significantly more airmiles and fees to book the direct flight from Montreal than the Ottawa-Montreal-MCO flight we have that includes that flight! Airlines are crazy.

 

[ottawamom]

Call Air Canada direct (I know, I did say that, whole other issue). See if they will book you on the Montreal - Orlando direct as they have significantly changed your ability to make the flight. They should be willing to do that as it frees up seats on the Ottawa - Montreal flight for them.

I was checking my flights for April last night and the return through Montreal (economy) is listed at over $1000. There must be something wrong with their system again. You've got time to work through this, get a solution that works for you.

Don't assume the airline will hold the flight. They are so worried these days about their ontime performance and just don't care about their passengers. Is there a flight from Montreal later in the day (if you were to miss the connection) or would they end up booking you on something else with a connection in the states?

 

[ottawamom]

@CanadianKrista I'm not certain what your dates are but I was just checking the end of August Saturday - Saturday. There are 2 flights out of Montreal but there are 4 flights daily out of Toronto. The early morning flight has a tight connection but some of the flights later in the day have 2+ hours connection. If you have to change your flight (and I can't believe I'm going to say this given my experience) you might be better off getting them to change your flights to Ottawa - Toronto - Orlando (return)

So long as you give yourself lots of connection time you'll get there the same day. Keep in mind not all Ottawa-Toronto flights leave on time but at least they have one each hour.

 

[Chickinvic]

I've done that connection and I would say give yourself time. You are usually legging it pretty far through the Montreal airport from where the flight from Ottawa gets you. Then having to do customs, etc. I would not want less than an hour to do it personally.

PS - Same thing happened to us. We had an AC flight direct from Ottawa to Orlando and they cancelled it. Uggg! I still prefer to go through Montreal than Pearson (which I try to avoid if at all possible).

 

[CanadianKrista]

Seems like they cancelled all the direct flights. I've done up a list of options for DH to read over, I'll call tonight once we decide what we want and see what can be done...

Here are my options:

• What we have – 6am Saturday leave Ottawa, 55 minute layover in Montreal where we need to pass through customs, arrive Orlando around 11am. This seems very high risk to me, not a lot of flights out of Montreal later in the day if we miss the connection.
• Leave Ottawa slightly later at 6:30am, 1 hour 40 minutes in Toronto to clear customs, get in Orlando at noon (Still tight for customs in Toronto)
• Leave Ottawa at 11am, 2 hours in Toronto, get into Orlando at 5pm, lose that day in Orlando
• Ask to move our flight to Friday night, 6pm flight out, 1 hour 50 minutes in Toronto, arrive Orlando midnight, use airmiles to book the hotel at the airport for one night, get up in the morning whenever we want and head to the Magical Express, get all day in Disney – (I am kinda leaning towards this if they will do it and I can get DH to agree). However this flight is on ACs website, but doesn't show up on airmiles site....Sigh.
• See if we can get ourselves to Montreal and fly direct from there, same thing, book a hotel night before with Airmiles close to the hotel, will still need to get up stupid early to get to airport

 

[hdrolfe]

Getting to Montreal keep in mind you can take the train as well, they have a bus from the train station to the Montreal airport, obviously you need to check the times but it doesn't seem to cost that much. Or drive and park at the Montreal Airport (or a nearby hotel, or park n fly place). I've been looking into it as well. Direct flights to/from Ottawa and Florida seem to be becoming scarce. Toronto, same situation, you could take the train or drive. Either way, it sucks that those direct flights are going away!

 

[badiggio]

Seems like they cancelled all the direct flights. I've done up a list of options for DH to read over, I'll call tonight once we decide what we want and see what can be done...

Here are my options:

• What we have – 6am Saturday leave Ottawa, 55 minute layover in Montreal where we need to pass through customs, arrive Orlando around 11am. This seems very high risk to me, not a lot of flights out of Montreal later in the day if we miss the connection.
• Leave Ottawa slightly later at 6:30am, 1 hour 40 minutes in Toronto to clear customs, get in Orlando at noon (Still tight for customs in Toronto)
• Leave Ottawa at 11am, 2 hours in Toronto, get into Orlando at 5pm, lose that day in Orlando
• Ask to move our flight to Friday night, 6pm flight out, 1 hour 50 minutes in Toronto, arrive Orlando midnight, use airmiles to book the hotel at the airport for one night, get up in the morning whenever we want and head to the Magical Express, get all day in Disney – (I am kinda leaning towards this if they will do it and I can get DH to agree). However this flight is on ACs website, but doesn't show up on airmiles site....Sigh.
• See if we can get ourselves to Montreal and fly direct from there, same thing, book a hotel night before with Airmiles close to the hotel, will still need to get up stupid early to get to airport

Imo,i'd do the 6:30 with the 1hr 40 min layover in toronto.That's plenty of time,again ,imo."IF" by some occurence,you missed the connection,you could be put on the next,but customs going is a lot quicker than customs incoming,where you have flights from everywhere.

 

[badiggio]

I have to add,i also hate going to Montreal from ottawa as they usually use those small propeller planes.Flew back to ottawa from Montreal,ONCE,and haven't used montreal since.

 

[bankr63]

If you go ahead with this, I do recommend checking your luggage through. Trudeau has had baggage pre-clearance longer than Pearson has, so there is no need to collect luggage to clear customs. This does speed the process considerably. As you clear customs they just show you a picture and ask if this is your bag. Prep your kids for the question though, because in a family party they may not tag the bag to the correct person in the party. It's all good until dad goes through last and gets a raised eyebrow when he says "yes, the Disney princess luggage is mine..."

We have only done connecting flight once, the other couple of times we did YUL we did a park and fly airport nearby. My recollection is that connecting was actually very quick and not very difficult. I find Pearson much harder to navigate.