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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.