My daughter who is 18 years old is joining us in Florida in June. She is travelling on Delta from Gatwick to Orlando via Atlanta. Please could anyone give me specific advice with regard to the transfer at Atlanta. She has 90 minutes allowed for the transfer. Delta assure me that this is adequate and I am happy to accept this. I just want to ensure she knows exactly what to expect at Atlanta.
Thanks
Hi PJS. My son has been travelling on his own to meet us in Florida for the past 3 years, so I understand your concerns.
First of all your daughter will have to go through Immigration when she lands in Atlanta. She will walk off the 'plane, and be directed to the Immigration Hall. She will have had to fill in her Green form and white Customs form on the aeroplane, and it would be wise to tell her that she needs to take care when filling it in as they will not accept any mistakes on the form, and will send her to the end of the queue to re-do it. This could be a problem with a fairly short time in between flights. I would suggest that if she makes a mistake she asks for another form on the plane and re-does it. They are used to this so tell her not to worry - we all make mistakes on this form from time to time! Thats why I leave it to my husband.....
It might be helpful to her to have all the information she needs handy, and I believe you can view this form online, and there is advice on how to how to fill it in.
Having got to immigration she will have her photo taken and her finger prints checked.
Then she will have to collect her luggage from the baggage hall. This will be signposted, and she will be able to find the appropriate carousel from screens above them.
She must collect her luggage and take it through customs, where it will probably be scanned again in front of you. She will have to hand in her white form and they randomly check suitcases, so tell her to be prepared for this and not to worry. They will just ask a few questions and look inside the suitcase. Most of the time you simply walk straight through. Just make sure she doesn't have any fruit etc on her.
Now she will have to give her luggage back for the next leg of the flight, which is classed as a domestic flight. She will be directed to an area where the suitcases are put back on a conveyor and transferred to the aeroplane. This will be well signposted and if she can't see where to go then tell her to ask. They are normally very helpful.
Now she is free to find her gate, and maybe terminal.
She should proceed as quickly as possible to her new gate as she does not have a huge amount of time.
They normally tell you on board the transatlantic plane which gate you need for connecting flights. Otherwise, tell her to ask or look at the monitors. We have always found it helpful to print off a map of the airport terminals before our son goes so that he knows exactly how far he has to walk to get to his new gate. You can find these maps on the appropriate website for the airport, and can usually print these off.
When she gets to the gate she will be able to relax and maybe have a drink or snack - or perhaps phone mum to tell her she has reached Atlanta!
She wll then be called to board the plane, but this is not normally until half an hour before the flight is due to leave.
I cannot tell you which terminal her transatlantic flight will come into at Atlanta, neither can I guess which gate or terminal she will need for her domestic onward flight, but she may well need to use the little railway transport system to get from one terminal to the other. Others will be able to give you more definite advice.
Now what happens if her transatlantic plane is delayed? Well of course this can happen at any time, and it can lead to the missing of the connecting flight. However, usually the airlines are very helpful. Should this happen (and she needs to be prepared for this -even if it never transpires - as at least then she will not panic), then she will probably need to rebook onto the next flight. She may have to go to the Delta desk to do this, but they will tell her what to do and she should not be afraid to ask. Sometimes, if they know a plane is going to be delayed they will have already prepared all the new labels, boarding cards etc. for them and they might only have to sort this out where you drop off the luggage for the domestic (internal) flight to Orlando. We have found this varies from airport to airport and carrier to carr
ellie
Transatlantic flights land at terminal E. The onward flight could be from any of the other 5 terminals (t,a,b,c,d).
She may not find the onward flight gate details until she gets to the middle of the terminal (follow the signs for the train symbol) At the middle of each terminal will be a large board displaying ALL flights from the airport.
After handing over her lugage for the onward flight she will also need to walk through another security scanning - this should be marked 'Onward Flights'.
Last time we flew we not only landed at terminal 'E' from the transatlantic flight but we flew out of 'E' for the Florida flight. Also warn her that in the time it has taken for her to fly across the Atlantic the terminal and gate for the onward flight to Florida may change from the one shown on her boarding pass.
Mo
Maureen Green
I don't know if this is possible but if you take her luggage out with you, she won't have all the issues with collecting and re-checking it at Atlanta.
90 minutes is plenty and I'm sure she'll be fine. It's almost impossible to board the wrong plane and the rail connection at Atlanta is very user friendly.
We have travelled this route a couple of times and we have always had to travel from one end of the railway system to the other (from terminal E to terminal A). The train is very quick and once in the second terminal you are in the middle of the terminal. However pushed for time your daughter is tell her to double check the boards in the terminal before heading to her gate - Delta do move their flights around and you won't always be leaving from the gate number printed on your boarding pass so you can be running from one end of the terminal to the other. We have always found Delta to be extremely helpful and we have always made our connections.
Tracey
Thank you very much for your specific comments and information. This has been a great help, not to mention comfort and piece of mind for my wife and I. We will take your advice and send Harriet with only hand luggage. However, I am sure that she will have plenty of luggage to take back with her on her return journey [msnsmile]
We have travelled Delta via Atlanta on several occasions. Most worked well, but we did have one trip where we were delayed out of Gatwick and missed our connecting flight. Although there were several more flights later that evening from Atlanta to Orlando, Delta could only put us on standby. There were about 35 passengers who hadn't made the connection so the chances of finding them all seats on already fully booked flights was slim. My husband, being an aviation nut, demanded to see the duty manager and with the support of the other passengers, secured seats for us all on a flight to Daytona Beach with onward transport back to Orlando International, where most of us had hire cars booked and where our luggage had been checked through to. We eventually got to our villa around midnight (around 6 hours late), but that was preferable to sleeping in Atlanta Airport with a 7 and a 1 year old! (Delta would not have paid an overnight hotel bill).
So advice for your daughter is to speak up, ask Delta staff if she is not sure where to go, and don't get fobbed off with any unreasonable offers if things do go wrong. Try to find some other passengers affected and stick together to demand a fair resolution to any problem. If they can't get her to Orlando, tell them they can fly her to Daytona Beach or Tampa and lay on ground transportation to Orlando International. Both of these airports are about one hour 20 minutes away.
Sandra
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