TIGHT FLIGHT CONNECTIONS---BEWARE

When you book a flight that requires a connection, the agent (or airline website) will likely offer connections that give you an hour or less between flights. Book that at your own risk. Never could that advice be more important than during the upcoming holiday season. It has long been standard practice for airlines to consider as little as 45 minutes as a legal connection time between flights. In these days of security searches and wayward baggage, you are likely to be left standing at the departure gate if that's all the time you have. Particularly in larger airports, where arrival and departure gates can be quite a distance from each other, I recommend that for any flights you book that require connections you should allow AT LEAST FOUR HOURS from the time the first flight arrives until the connecting one leaves. That's right, four---count 'em---four hours. Even better---six hours. I've recently had connecting flights at four of the world's biggest airports---and they're ones you're likely to be using if you have any trans-Atlantic travel plans in your future: LAX, JFK, Chicago's O'Hare and London's Heathrow. I wouldn't risk a connection time of less than four hours in any of them. Door to Door? In a perfect world (which we're a long way from) your arriving flight will be just a gate or two away from your departure gate. You hop off the plane before anyone else, skip 10 or 20 yards, and jump into your departing plane. Meanwhile, the baggage handlers down on the ground see your arriving baggage first and shuttle it right onto your nearby departing flight. 45 minutes? A piece of cake. But in the real and imperfect world, this is a more likely scenario: At any of the four above airports, or dozens more that you might be connecting through---domestic and foreign---your arrival gate and your departure gate might be half a mile or so apart. (The airlines have no clue as to which gates you'll be arriving at or leaving from until shortly before scheduled landing or take-off. Those gates are assigned depending on aircraft ground traffic at the airport.) First of all, your arriving flight has to land on time. That 45 minute connections does not take late arrivals into account, and more and more arrivals are getting later and later. Then, depending on where you're seated on your inbound flight it can take 10 to 20 minutes just to get off the plane! Then, if the concourse is crowded---a common fact in most airports most days---you'd have to do some creative broken-field running to get to the departing gate within another 10 to 20 minutes. So all of the tea-leaves would have to read in your favor to make the connection. One slip and you're stranded. And that's just for you personally, on a domestic connection and in a single terminal building. Your baggage is a whole 'nother matter, and rest assured that the baggage handlers do walk, not run, from one plane to another with the outgoing luggage. If your departing flight is in a different terminal, as can be the case in all four of the airports mentioned earlier, you have to face the daunting task of getting from Terminal A to Terminal B in record time. You still have to get off the first plane and dash to wherever the inter-terminal shuttle is, then dash from the end of that little ride to your departing gate. 45 minutes? That piece of cake has long gone stale. And don't think the problems don't exist with smaller airports. I've also been in and out of Pittsburgh, Las Vegas, Philadelphia and San Francisco recently, and the distance between gates in all of those airports can be challenging to all but the hardiest cross-country runners. International Connection? You Might Want To Pack a Lunch The dilemma multiplies exponentially if you're making an international connection from one country to another. Add to all of the above tasks the requirement that you collect your baggage, take it through incoming customs, stand in line to get through incoming passport control, get to the departure terminal and go through security again before you can board your connecting flight. If it's a busy day---and most are these days---all of that connecting activity can easily take up to two hours. If it all takes place in a single terminal. And if everything runs smoothly. When you have to change terminals on top of everything else, which is not uncommon, you'll be glad you had six hours between flights. When you make a booking, check with the reservationist as to whether your incoming and outgoing flights are in the same terminal, and, if not, how you get from one to the other. Also check the airline's terminal maps on their internet site. (On most international connections your baggage will be sent to your outgoing flight after you've cleared incoming customs, so that will save you having to shlep it to the outgoing terminal.) I know, when you're offered a swift and seamless connection that will take only an hour or so, or even two hours, it's very appealing. No one likes to hang around airports any longer than necessary. But play it smart and play it safe---by leaving yourself at least four hours to connect, you could be sparing yourself a six hour or eight hour or ten hour or even overnight delay if you miss the original connection. True, if the airline doesn't connect you within the legal connection time, they might treat you to a drink or a packet of peanuts for your troubles. By why take the risk? On the bright side, bear in mind that most airlines don't serve meals on most flights, so during that longer connection gap you can have time for a leisurely---but not necessarily good or inexpensive--- meal at the airport. Or, you can have time to shop for a take-out meal. Extra onions on that? Why not? Your seat-mate will probably have them. Bon Voyage! This article supplements Chapter 3, pages 88-98 in Personal Finance. Access the textbook by clicking on the box in the right column.