travel q

[rm]

Okay, so I'm planning this SF thing for real now.

27 minutes to change planes in Kansas City?

Absurd or hey, if they're scheduling the flight that way, it should work?

Comments

[taffimai.livejournal.com]

Oh hell, no.

[jigglykat.livejournal.com]

In a perfect world, it'd work. But if your plane is delayed in NYC by 20 minutes, you're kind of fucked.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'm sort of talking myself down from this. For an extra $100 and the hassle of going to JFK over Laguardia, we could fly Jet Blue and hate life less.

[brewsternorth.livejournal.com]

*nods* Sounds like the peace of mind and decreased quantity of imponderables is worth it.

Plus, from what I can tell from airfarewatchdog, JetBlue's baggage fee structure is even kinder than Frontier's (for now).

[mellacita.livejournal.com]

Well, the Kansas City Airport has 3 terminals. WIs it still Frontier as the airline? If so, they have four gates all side by side. It's possible, but it's not something I would feel comfortable scheduling for myself. Especially since they seem to only have one flight per day to each West Coast destination. If you miss it, you could be stuck for 24 hours, and all it takes is some fog or an air traffic control delay out of Laguardia/JFK etc and you've missed the 10 minute prior door close.

I have made connections that tight before. I have also missed connections that tight before. It's a bit of a gamble.

[rm.livejournal.com]

It is totally Frontier. And yeah, it just seems waaaaaaaaaaay too tight, despite having done and made connections like this before, but it wasn't Frontier.

[dsmoen.livejournal.com]

I'd never do a 27-minute connection, not even in Heathrow (where I have made a connection in 27 minutes even with customs in the middle).

[newsbean.livejournal.com]

Kansas City has a weird airport. It wasn't particularly set up to be able to deal with 9/11 security requirements. Their solution has been to set up one xray machine/scanner for every couple of gates. Assuming that both gates are in the same cordoned off area, you should be fine. However, I don't know that there's anyway of finding that out ahead of time.

Personally, I wouldn't chance it. However, depending on the airline, most will get you a seat on the next flight out if you miss a regularly scheduled connection due to tight timing on their part.

[hoyland54.livejournal.com]

Kansas City has a weird airport. It wasn't particularly set up to be able to deal with 9/11 security requirements.

Did they actually change how the checkpoints were laid out or was the airport designed that way? (I can't really remember flying to Kansas City as a small child and I didn't again until I was an adult.) Because the one checkpoint to one/a few gates model is used at Berlin Schönefeld, Schiphol* and Frankfurt and part of me suspects it might be more efficient than the one checkpoint per concourse model, as you can theoretically then have only one flight's worth of passengers going through a checkpoint at once.

I don't know that I have good anecdata here, though. In Frankfurt, I was very early, so there was no line. Presumably had there been a central checkpoint, there would have been a line. Schiphol was a bit of a clusterfuck, to be honest, as there were inadequate seats on the far side of the checkpoint and it was kind of unclear what was going on.** I wasn't stupidly early to Schönefeld (well, I was, but a fair number of people had arrived when the check-in desk opened) and there was maybe a two person line.

*Sort of. Schiphol is divided by passport control and a security checkpoint into a section for Schengen Zone flight and one for flights to non-Schengen destinations. If you're flying to a non-Schengen destination, you go through security at the gate. That way everyone goes through security at Schiphol, even if they're only transiting without going through passport control.
**This may have been because I didn't understand how Schiphol is meant to work. On my way to Germany, I was really confused when we landed, as you walk out onto the concourse when every other airport I've been to, you get funnelled into passport control.

[rax.livejournal.com]

That's pretty absurd. Assuming you mean KCI->SFO, KCI has three different terminals that take time to get between and you may not fly out of the same one you arrive in. Also a flight KCI->SFO is likely to have already started boarding before you touch down; assuming everything happens on schedule, you will have around 20 minutes to get from one plane to the other, maybe 30 if you're lucky, 10-15 if you are not.

If there isn't any other good way to go, it might be worth seeing if (a) the flights are generally on-time, and (b) there will be a later flight from KCI to SFO if you do miss the one you're scheduled for. If not (b) I would recommend a different itinerary.

I haven't flown through KCI in a while, though. Whatever you pick, safe travels!

[ckd]

That appears to be a "legal connection", meaning that it's more time than the minimum connection time (MCT) for that airport and airline. However, the MCT is probably 20-25 minutes for that one; if so you'd be "legal" by a whopping 2-7 minutes. I don't think there are any 15 minute MCTs anywhere.

I'd only book that if there was a later MCI-SFO flight I could use as backup.

[savorie.livejournal.com]

I'm happy you'll be here!

[ravenskye8.livejournal.com]

KCI isn't huge, and if your flight is in the same gate area that's plenty of time...

I haven't been there since before 9/11 - so in past I would have said that jumping between gate areas would be easy in that amount of time, but I have no idea what hurdles they have put in since that might make it take longer...

Also, logic and airlines rarely go together, so I'd make sure to have a plan B in case your first leg runs late, or the gate run is further or more convoluted than "across the hall" (or both - gah).

[laurashapiro.livejournal.com]

Eee! I would love to meet you in person if you do make it here.

[rm.livejournal.com]

We're going to be there over Labor Day weekend 8/30 or 31 - 9/5, and will probably do a "meet LJ" evening at some point, otherwise we'll be hiding out with each other (since the point of not going to Dragon*Con is to be able to focus on each other).

[laurashapiro.livejournal.com]

Understood. (: I look forward to further updates on the meet-up, at your convenience, of course.

BTW, just wanted to let you know I am reading and enjoying your work on LfT.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Thank you! It's been so good for me to get out of the habits of LJ. It makes me feel like a traitor a bit, but my mind is working better without some of the baggage.

[laurashapiro.livejournal.com]

I totally get that. Sometimes a change of venue is important.

My own habits are following me, though: I comment on LJ and DW, but not on blogs. So I haven't been leaving comments on LfT. This seems like a problem.

[dsmoen.livejournal.com]

So near and yet so far from Worldcon!

[ursamajor]

I don't know what airline you're flying, or how big the KC airport is. But on my last miserable connection experience, I got to learn that United considers their flights "closed" 10 minutes before the official time listed on your ticket, which means that if your flight is supposed to leave at 5 pm and you get there at 4:51 pm, you are not allowed to get on said plane.

If you mean that you have 27 minutes between arrival of flight #1 and departure of flight #2? Oh hell to the eff no.

[teleens-journal.livejournal.com]

I've been through that airport and assuming your flight in NY isn't delayed, you should be fine. *fingers crossed*

[neadods.livejournal.com]

I get 30 minutes in Houston, so you are not alone here. So there's more than one airline with the notion that this is possible, FWIW.

[feyandstrange.livejournal.com]

Especially with the strong possibility of weather delays, I wouldn't touch it.

[eacole72.livejournal.com]

I fly into & out of KCI on a semi-regular basis, as it is the closest major airport to where I live. They do a pretty good job of keeping each airline's flights within a single terminal, but codeshare flights are anyone's guess.

27 minutes might be doable, if you have a seat in the front of the plane and let the flight attendants know that you have an extremely tight connection to make. If you're at the back of the plane, you won't make it. If the people who connect the jetways to the planes have problems (about half the time I'm flying, they do), it can take 30 minutes just to find an operator who can figure out how to fix what the original operator did, let alone actually do.

One other thing to be aware of: there is very minimal food & drink inside the secured area. There is 1 small kiosk per set of gates selling sandwiches and fruit, soda pop & bottled water. All restaurants & bars are outside the secured area.

[sahiya.livejournal.com]

Your weather over Labor Day should be lovely! SF is often foggy in the summers, but that is late enough that it ought to be transitioning to our usual awesome fall.

I dunno if I'll be in town at that point, but if I am, I will try to make it to your LJ meet-up.

[6-bleen-7.livejournal.com]

Shuttling back and forth between college (Cleveland) and home (Salt Lake City), I used to have 20-min connections in Denver all the time. I either made them or missed the connection by more than five hours, so either way it didn't matter.

Don't know anything about the Kansas City airport, but my optimism to make that kind of a connection would depend on the airline and on where the connecting flight was originating. Most of my short winter connections are pretty safe because anything that delays the first flight tends to delay the second as well, but I might be luckier that way than the average traveler.

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

Not something I'd rely on, no. Airlines are just not good about ensuring their connections will work.