Hi,

I am in hurry to check and buy tickets for a trip to and fro from Toronto to Singapore.

My travel agent has given me an option in which I have to travel back to Toronto from Singapore via Narita International Airport in Japan.

My main concern is the time available for transit. It is only 40 minutes and I am not sure whether that would be sufficient to transit without any hassle. I don't know whether the time is just right or whether its too short for transit and am also concerned about whether the luggage would be transferred safely within that time.

Any delay in the flight from Singapore to Narita will also be troublesome.

Anyone who knows about the minimum time needed for transit, please advise me whether 40 minutes would be sufficient.

Thank you very much for any info.

Regards.

I have no experience in transitting in Tokyo but 40 minutes sounds incredibly short; everything would have to go smoothly for you to make such a connection. Consider your options, when is the next flight? If you missed the scheduled flight would they put you on the next one without a charge?

I prefer spending a few hours in an airport rather than worrying on the flight whether I'll make the next one or having to run to the gate. It sounds like you're already worried about it so I wouldn't do it.

No one can answer the question accurately without knowing the airlines involved. There is a set table for minimum connecting times depending on airlines and whether it is international or domestic.

Nothing specific to that airport, and we don't know your airlines... but I never take a plane transfer of less than 1 hour anywhere for any reason. Too much can go wrong.

Narita was a nightmare when we flew to Bangkok via Narita - very confusing, had to get a ticket to a bus to get to a different terminal; took a very long time. It depends on where your flight lands and the next one takes off

and if it lands and deplanes on time

Am guessing that OP is flying on Singapore Airlines or United and then Air Canada. Those Star Alliance members share a terminal, so connections are supposed to be quick.

Here is some info on that:
http://www.staralliance.com/en/trave.../NRT-info.html
So, 45 minutes would do it. I'd expect that the connecting flight would be held if you arrived late.

The connecting flight would never be held.

<<I'd expect that the connecting flight would be held if you arrived late.>>

Then you'd be expecting wrong!

Who says a connecting flight "would never be held"? It can definitely be held, if the airline wants to.

For example, at NRT, NW and UA will regularly hold their flights if one of their inbounds are late (unless excessively). Because these two airlines run NRT as a major connecting point, especially NW, often with majority of their customers connecting. They don't want to strand 300+ passengers in Tokyo for a day or more.

Not saying a connecting flight WILL be held, or MUST be held. Simply it CAN be held.

rkkwan, I am glad you posted. I remembered your explanation, several months ago about how an airline (NW, I think) would hold their NRT-> asia flights for incoming flights from the U.S. Part of the reason (I think you mentioned) was that UA's NRT->BKK flight was going there to park overnight anyway, so it didn't matter much if it was late.

I guess if OP was on an AC flight to YYZ arriving in the morning that it might be put to use immediately. But isn't it likely that the plane would just turn around and go back to NRT. An hour delay leaving NRT can be made up. If late leaving NRT by an hour then it might be a half hour late leaving YYZ the next day, but then on-time the next day leaving NRT. Or maybe it is just chronically late like the NRT-asia flights that depend on a variety of feeders from the USA.

I don't know if AC would wait for SQ pax, but assume they would wait for AC pax, and the flight might be AC 111 SIN-YYZ with a stop at NRT.

I did check the star-alliance flight schedules for a couple of days and didn't find many SIN-NRT-YYZ connections (several options via HKG). The one or two that were scheduled were 90 minutes or more.

Happened to us once, and it was before 9/11 and before I knew not to get tight connections.

We had Canadian Air San Francisco to Montreal with stopover in Toronto. Landed late in Toronto, carry-on only, ran from one plane to another, and on the way the employees shouted:
-are you Agains?
-yes
-keep running, they are waiting for you
ran on, fell into seats, the plane took off immediately

And by the way, don't remember which flight, recently, the pilot announced: we'll be taking off 10' late, somebody is running to make the connection.

So it's not unheard of to hold a few minutes.

<<Who says a connecting flight "would never be held"? It can definitely be held, if the airline wants to.

We had an AC flight held for us (family of 4) and 2 other passengers for a flight from YYZ to PHL. (Our Heathrow-YYZ flight was late).

Once on a late arriving flight into Denver, we arrived to see a gate marked Philadelphia directly across from our incoming gate. We ran over to see what it was, and it was our flight, which was also running late (airport was closed b/c of thunderstorms). As we were running, the gate agent asked us if we were "last name", and we said Yes, and, like Faina, they told us to hurry. They didn't even take our boarding passes.

I've never seen a flight held for a single pasenger - and, in fact, had a plane door closed in my face when I was told a flight would be held for me (and ran most of the way between the gates).

Typically flights are only held (since the pilot doesn't want to lose his place in the take-off line) if there are a large number of passengers transfering between one flight and another. They won't do it for one or two.

i was traveling with a friend from iad to hnl via ord on ua. the flt out of iad was delayed about 20min. we had a very close connection time between ord and sfo, so i knew it would be touch and go, more go.

sure enough, we landed just before departure time, so he and i ran to the departure gate, which was in the next terminal(he was 70 at that time). i think it was from terminal b to c or the other way around. andyway, speedy gonzales we are not. we made the gate after departure time, but they were waiting for us. door closed after we boarded. got alot of not too friendly stares. , but a few did applaud.