justshootme

My friend has booked flight to Mexico with her travel agent, the outbound flight has a 43 minute connection in Newark airport. YIKES. Is this a guaranteed missed connection? lost baggage? Oh, and I should add, she's booked us on a Dash 8 for the first flight. I flipped when I read this. I have never connected through Newark could fodorites who have connected throught Newark please let me know how realistic a 43 minute connection is? I am having my doubts that the flight(s) will be okay.

Thanks in advance.

justshootme

Oh, and to add insult to injury, the flight we are connecting to is the last non stop to our destination for the day.

In addition, this is for travel in winter. So, who knows what weather related delays we may face.

Oh, what fun.....

I want to scream......

Why didn't I book this myself, oh, so and so (the travel agent) is a friend, I want to give the business to her....

end of rant (for now).

rkkwan

Well, at least the Dash8 comes into Terminal C, not A, so you won't need to ride the bus/train or go through security.

43 minutes is tight, but not undoable. If the arriving flight is delayed due to weather, the outbound also is likely to be delayed.

CO can usually cancel your booking within 24 hours. And if you can't or won't cancel, you may also want to do confirmed same-day change to get on an earlier flight into EWR, by paying $50. You can request that within 24 hours of the originally scheduled flight.

justshootme

rkkwan, thanks for your reply. There isn't an earlier connection to Newark. We are flying YYZ to CUN. There are two non stop flights to Cancun from Newark, the later flight leaves at 9 am that's the one she's booked us on. If we miss this flight, we'll be sent on a wild goose chase trying to connect via IAH (which is what she should have booked us on in the first place) to get to Cancun. Oh, it's going to be a looooooooong day. I am dreading this.

How big is terminal C, where on CO's website can I check what terminal the outbound flight leaves from.

I will check about cancelling this booking. I know the ta is closed tomorrow, so that doesn;t help.

My friend travels but not too often, so I can understand why she overlooked these things, I am not too happy about this, I am sure this is obvious.

justshootme

Oh, and if I can change this to connect in Houston instead, how long should we allow between flights for the outbound flight, since we will have already cleared US customs in YYZ.

rkkwan

Here's the map for EWR:

http://www.continental.com/web/en-US.../maps/ewr.aspx

The Dash 8 Q400 flight from YYZ generally arrives in the middle concourse. For today and tomorrow, they come in to Gate C105.

The flight to CUN usually leave from either the right side or left side concourse.

Because your flight from YYZ departs early, it's unlikely to be delayed. I think chances are you will be fine with your connection. Unless there's serious snowstorm in Toronto or Newark areas.

rkkwan

You actually need a little longer to connect at IAH, because CO uses regional jet for the long YYZ-IAH leg, and they arrive at Terminal B. You'll need to walk to the train and take it to Terminal C/E and then walk again to the gates. At least an hour. 1.5hr better.

justshootme

Thank you rkkwan, you have helped me alot.

I was thinking Houston would be a better connection, especially in winter. I guess, I'll keep my fingers crossed and see how this works out.

djkbooks

I would cancel and rebook!

The problem with Newark and Continental in winter is weather delays and cancellations. If the first flight is late, and the connection is missed, there's no guarantee of getting of a flight the next day, especially if the flight is cancelled due to weather and all passengers have to be rebooked.

Our last connection in Newark with Continental (late March), our arriving flight was late, due to weather (the plane was very late arriving from the East Coast), and our connecting flight, the last of the day, was cancelled. We had travel insurance (purchased with the ticket through Continental), so rented a car and drove home (thankfully "only" a four hour drive), and were fully reimbursed (plus an unexpected credit from Continental for the cancelled flight). We would have headed for a hotel, but all were fully booked due to all the cancellations. Found out on the way home we had been rebooked to a flight on Tuesday (from Saturday). Newark is NOT a place you'd want to have to spend one night, much less three.

We resolved after that to stick to non-stop flights in winter, or connections where weather delays and cancellations are not so problematic.

justshootme

rkkwan, you have made me feel better but I still have my doubts that this will be a problem free trip.
djkbooks, even without the possibility of a snow storm or weather related delay I am not happy with the booking. I spoke to my friend this morning and she had no idea that this could be a problem when she booked. She hasn't travelled much and I can understand why she overlooked this. I've spend so long worrying about the outbound flight; I concerned about the return too, since we only have 1 hour and 11 minutes in Houston to clear immigration, customs and connect. Seriously, what kind of travel agent did she, my travel companion, use (oh, yes her so called friend), one who clearly knows very little and doesn't deserve the business. Obviously, the friend I am travelling with put too much trust in the ta. Today is Saturday and the ta is closed. The ta is closed until Tuesday (Monday is a holiday in Canada), I will contact the ta myself on Tuesday and speak to her to find out what is involved in cancelling/changing the ticket. I doubt she'll be accomodating, the ta even gave my friend the wrong checked luggage information for this booking. I don't want to call the airline behind the agent's back so I will follow up on Tuesday.

I had though that Houston was a better choice for the connection, even if that means putting up with a RJ for a three plus hour flight. rkkwan, I will take your advise and make sure we have a minimum of one and a half hours on the outbound flight if I change this booking. For the return flight, a longer layover, will be better.

djkbooks

I agree that this booking has a too short connection time, even with no delays.

But, also, there would not have to be a snow storm for there to be weather delays. In our case, the weather delay was caused by winds. And, this was definitely true as it was very, very windy on the drive home, even though everything seemed fine when we landed and other flights were taking off. We were told in Las Vegas that the plane for our connecting flight was also delayed getting to/from Florida, and our connecting flight would probably be delayed versus cancelled, but it was cancelled.

I'm guessing the TA will not be very cooperative, particularly with you versus your friend who made the booking.

If the fare was paid to the TA, rather than Continental, perhaps you could dispute all with the CC issuer?

I would surely be concerned about connection times, and bags.

Now that the airlines have cut their schedules so dramatically, it seems all connections are too short or too long.

When our connecting flight from Newark was cancelled, our originally booked return flight had a connection in Cleveland, which was shut down for the entire day due to a snowstorm. We wouldn't have been able to even leave Las Vegas, and don't know what we would have done or how that would have gone. We did have a short connection in Cleveland (55 minutes) on the way to Las Vegas, which went just fine.

Hope you can get this changed to your satisfaction!

rkkwan

Everybody's comfort level with connection is different, and the nature and consequences are also different. One really has to let the TA (or whoever booking the flight) what's the acceptable and what's not. No one way to do it.

justshootme

After spending the weekend sweating about this, the ta contacted my travel companion yesterday (before I could contact the ta), it turns out that the ticket was not issued because the cc information the ta had was incorrect. The ta told my friend that she would need to charge her a service fee. WTF, no ticket (albeit, in this case this is a good thing), and now we are being told we need to a pay a fee for the ta's time. The ta said she'd rebook and apply another fee to our booking. My friend told the ta to #@?!*%^! So much for her wanting to give this ta business since they attend the same church. We will book this on the internet ourselves with a connection in IAH.

travel4now

if I have the option of IAH or Newark, without a pause I take IAH in winter even though I like Newark's airport better, it's easier. .

justshootme

Well, I am glad that we can avoid the turbo prop (Dash 8) and the 43 minute connection in EWR, but.....we just booked the flight and the airfare has increased last week. It's that nice......

thank you all for your help.

djkbooks

I wonder if the TA took the information correctly. (I'm guessing no - who reads their credit card information incorrectly, and didn't the TA read it back?)

Glad you got better flights.

justshootme

djkbooks, I think the ta had the, "oh, I can slack off on this one because the business WILL come to me" attitude. My friend is not impressed, she wanted to give this person business. Niether of are happy with how the ta handled the situation. Nevertheless, despite the tickets cost $55 pp due to the price increase, we are glad that the situation has been sorted out.