Connection time too short?

[GUMBALL]

Hi all,

Following on from my recent post regarding flights, I have found, what I hope is a better option:

We are flying LHR to MIA via Boston (all with BA and booked with BA), but (there's always a but!), the connection between the flights going out at Boston is only 1 1/2 hours. We land at 13.20 and leave at 14.50.

Is this enough time? What happens if we miss the second half of our trip due to flight delays or even slow pass through imigration?

Anyone done such a short connection time? I've done indirect before, but a long time ago, so can't remember much about it. Interestingly, we found some good flights, but connection times were only 40 mins - now, I'm sure that IS too short!

Many thanks

Sean

[CERICROWLEY]

Sean

Might be a good idea to check out which terminal you come in on and your departing gate etc. Just to give you an idea of how it will be. I have not done Boston yet. Usually always Newark, and now I can do it at a running pace of 1.15mins just. Have done Houston once and will be doing Chicago in a couple of weeks.

I try if possible to leave roughly 2 hours or more in connecting flights. just to be on the safe side. We missed our outgoing connection once, due to the flight from the UK being about 3 hours delayed taking off. We knew then we were going to miss the connections, We were with continental, so they booked us overnight and left the next morning. You might want to ask BA about their contingency on missed connections. It would normally be on the next available flight where seats will be available, you can go on standby and wait to see if can get on an earlier flight, but they normally put you on the next confirmed seat.

[Katys Grandad]

BA don't fly Boston to Miami so I suspect that you'll be on American Airlines for that leg and that will mean a change of terminal. At BOS you transfer on the buses that run continually around the terminals and, if I remember rightly, BA use Terminal E and American use B. The bus takes between 5 & 15 minutes depending on terminals.

If your international flight is on time and you aren't delayed at Immigration then you'll be OK with that timing but of course you can't guarantee that. However, Boston isn't a major international hub so you tend to get through Immigration quickly there. In any event American will put you on the next flight if you miss it. (There's a flight at 5.35pm so if you're concerned about the connection, ask BA to book you on that one).

[Jill]

If you have booked it as a through flight with the same carrier then they ought to put you on the next available flight. We nearly missed a flight from Atlanta to Tampa a few years back as immigration was so bad that day at Atlanta but it seemed most of the plane were in the same queue and Delta held the flight back so we all made it - whether it was just because it was the last flight of the day I do not know but we were very glad they did.

[GUMBALL]

Thanks to you all for the feedback.

You are correct on the terminals and, having looked deeper into it, it is AA for the second flight.

Our other option is to go via JFK going out with a connection time of 2hr 10mins. Flight arrives and leaves same terminal (8) in this case.

Now, I suspect JFK to be much slower to get through than Boston and not sure if this would be better or not.

There is an AA flight from Boston to Miami later in the day, so if we did miss it, I'm sure they should be able to fit us on there.

Hmmm, decisions decisions!!

Thanks again

Sean

[GUMBALL]

I emailed BA on this last night and got the following reply..

"Dear Sean
Thank you for writing to us about your reservation query.
When a flight is delayed for five hours or more disrupting a connecting journey for which you hold a through ticket, we will offer to re-route you to your final destination. If you do not wish to travel, you can claim a refund of the parts of the journey not yet flown."

Not exactly answering my question and not much help really.

I'm going to go with it anyway.

Thanks all for your help

Sean

[trupial]

Coming home from Canada in july we were flying, Spokane - Minneapolis - Amsterdam - Edinburgh
Originally we had 1h 30min between the Spok to Minne flight, it then changed to 1hour, then when in Spokane our flight was delayed 30mins which gave us 30min change over for our next one. Thankfully we made up good time and was a case of getting to the gate as the plane was boarding.