ccolor

We're considering a Delta flight that will have only a 1/2 hour layover in Cincinnati. I'm pretty uncomfortable with that little bit of time between segments - what do you think?
Thanks folks.

Carolina

Not enough time in my opinion! So many flights are delayed these days, I just wouldn't risk it.

RoamsAround

While Cincinnati is a small airport a 1/2 hour connecting time is simply not enough. That 1/2 hour is from scheduled touchdown of your in bound flight and scheduled take off of your out bound flight. Here are the major issues:

1) The 30 minutes assumes your in bound flight gets to the gate eaxactly "on-time" but that doesn't happen often. You have to allow for taxi time and deplaning which can take 15 to 20 minutes, more if it is a large plane and you are sitting in the rear.

2) The outbound flight will begin boarding about the time you are landing. If the planes loads quickly, the gate agents can stop the boarding process 5 to 10 minutes before departure.

3) You haven't factored in Murphy's Law of airport travel which says the shorter your connection time the more delays you will encounter - you inbound flight will arrive late, the ground crew will take a few extra minutes to guide the plane to the gate, you'll be sitting in the back of the plane and lastly you'll be arriving at gate 1 and departing from the gate furthest away. Conversely, if you choose a longer connecting time the opposite will occur, your inbound flight will arrive early, you'll deplane in less than 3 minutes, your outbound flight will be leaving from the same gate and it will actually depart 30 minutes later than scheduled.

Do yourself a favor, opt for a connecting time of at least an hour.

Andrew

RoamsAround: <i>While Cincinnati is a small airport a 1/2 hour connecting time is simply not enough. That 1/2 hour is from scheduled touchdown of your in bound flight</i>

<i>You have to allow for taxi time and deplaning which can take 15 to 20 minutes, more if it is a large plane and you are sitting in the rear.</i>

Er, the arrival time is the arrival time <i>at the gate</i>, not wheels-down. If an airport is busy and it typically takes 15 minutes to taxi to the gate, that 15 minutes would be built into the flight's travel time.

Andrew

My first question is, where are you <i>going?</i> If the first segment is a connection to an overseas vacation, where missing the connection would mean missing part of the first day of your vacation or worse...or you're flying home from a trip and HAVE to be at work the next day and there is no later flight you could catch if you miss your connection, I wouldn't risk it myself.

On the other hand, if you are just going to visit family and don't have a hard-fast time you have to be there, plus you have checked and there are additional direct flights leaving CVG after the one you are supposed to connect to (so you would be put on one of those), then I probably would go for it.

rkkwan

And where are you coming from? Have you checked the on-time stats of the first flight using flightstats.com? When is this flight - time of day, as well as season?

If it's first flight of the day, and the plane overnights at your origin city, and weather is never a factor, then that flight may have an excellent on-time record, so 30 minutes may be fine.

It just all depends...

ccolor

It would be a trip from central Ohio to Florida, would be a very early in the day flight and we won't have any time factors to worry about. I'll check on flightstats.com to see what kind of odds we're dealing with. Thanks for the suggestions and help.

dutyfree

Is it all on Comair?

ccolor

dutyfree:
Sorry I didn't post back sooner, but the Fodor site thought I had cooties or something. And now in my down time period the price skyrocketed so I think we're going to go with Southwest instead. Thanks for checking though - it's appreciated.