Ticket with 40 mins between flights in Chicago
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Anonymous
| DD coming back from college, bought a United ticket with 40 minutes between flights in Chicago. At first glance that seemed ok, but then we realized that planes close their doors 30 mins before take-off so basically she has 10 minutes to get off one plane and board the other plane (in the unlikely event the first flight is even on time.) What recourse do we have to get this situation fixed without extra charge? Shouldn't this be on United for selling such a ticket in the first place? |
Anonymous
| If domestic and on the same airline, the gates may be in the same terminal and within walking distance. You can probably find out what gates both are using that day before they leave. If they miss the flight they can go to the help desk and they will probably book them on the next one. Usually they are very helpful. |
Anonymous
It's on United if she misses the flight. They'll put her on the next one. |
Anonymous
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Figure out how many flights there are after your daughter's from Chicago to her final destination for the rest of the day. I'd only care to try and change it in advance if it's the last flight.
Also I don't think the door closes 30 minutes before takeoff for domestic flights. On American it's more like 10, I'd expect United is similar. They don't usually even start boarding until 30 minutes before for small domestic flights. |
Anonymous
| Phew, ok, that's a relief. I think it's the last flight of the night but it sounds like she might be able to make a run for it. Thanks. |
Anonymous
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If her flight lands on time, she should be fine. As I recall, Chicago OHare is shaped like a Y. She just needs to make a dash for it. She should know where she is getting in and where she is taking off before she gets on the first plane.
If her plane is late and she can't make the connection and it's the last flight of the night, make sure she has a contingency plan for where she stays. Find out if the airport lets people stay overnight under normal circumstances. |
Anonymous
| This happened with one of my kids and I called the airline and they switched to flights with more time in between. That said, he was a minor at the time (but old enough to be flying on an adult ticket) so they may have been more accommodating for that reason. For my oldest who needs two flights to get home from college the options are always too close or too long of a wait and I pick the long wait because I worry about her getting stuck due to a delay. |
Anonymous
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OP, your DD's departing flight will know whether the arriving flight will be late since it is the same airline (united).
As a previous poster mentioned, United will have gates in the same area but since ORD is a hub for United, they have the C and B terminals which is a decent walk. If you type in the different legs of the segments, you can see where these flights typically land and take off from at ORD so you can get a sense of the distance that your DD has to walk. Worst case scenario, she can camp out at the terminal overnight and there is a 6am out of ORD to DCA or IAD (assuming you live in DC). |
Anonymous
Travelers don’t get kicked out of giant airports like ORD. People are landing at 1am and people start arriving for flights at 3:30am. Nobody is getting removed during that brief lull. |
Anonymous
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40 minutes definitely tight at ORD- that's probably the Minimum Connection Time for United domestic-domestic connections there. MCT is the minimum time they will sell you a ticket for- shorter than that and their system won't do it as a single ticket. Different airports/airlines have different MCTs, and they are longer if including an international connection, of course.
Domestic flights usually start boarding around 35-40 minutes before departure time, and yes try to close the door 10 minutes before departure time. United uses both T1 and T2 at ORD, but they are connected behind security. The issue is that T1 has concourse B (the one close to the road), and concourse C (the one you reach through a tunnel from B). If she say comes into Concourse C and 2nd flight is out of T2, she would have to walk to the middle of C, go through the tunnel to B, then walk to the southern end of B, through the connecter to T2, then out to the gate in T2. It could be a solid probably 12-15 minute walking max. Or they could be 2 gates down from each other and it's 30 seconds of walking. Definitely look at which gates those flights use on recent days (flight aware.com is good) to get an idea, but don't assume it will always follow that pattern on her day of travel. Gate assignments are complicated. Finally, United has a program called ConnectionSaver that strategically holds flights for a few minutes if the system calculates it saves enough connections, but doesn't impact later flight times. Pretty cool actually. Again, don't count on it, but if the arriving flight is 10 minutes late and there are 10 people from it going to departing flight, good chance the system will signal them to hold it for an extra 5 minutes so they make it. https://crankyflier.com/2019/06/20/a-more-detailed-look-at-uniteds-connectionsaver/ |
Anonymous
| Depending on where her seat is it may be worth it to pay for a seat closer to the front of the first flight. That 10-15 min wait to deplane may make a difference. That said 40 min is tight but doable *if* the first flight is on time. And there is no weather. In Chicago. In December. May the force be with you. |
Anonymous
Oh good lord. This is too much information. She'll either make it or she won't, there are too many variables to game it all out. |
Anonymous
-100. I found this post very helpful. I'm not OP, but my DC is in Chicago and this is good information to know. |
Anonymous
the next flight with an open seat. Around Christmas, that may be a while |
Anonymous
yes, but airlines are exempt from state consumer laws, so they it's on your daughter not them |