Transfer between terminals at LAX
 

My daughter is travelling to the US early next month from New Zealand. She is flying Qantas, and lands at terminal 4 LAX 10.45am, she leaves for Columbus Ohio on South West airlines which is Terminal 1 at 12.40pm. She will only have carry on luggage. How long will it take to walk, and is it easy to find.

That is a tight connection. I suggest that she check in on line for the SW flight. Everytime I fly into/through LAX I get to see the madhouse at the SW terminal. The queues stretch out outside of the terminal, and I'm not exaggerating.

She will go through immigration and customs and then she will need to catch a bus to transfer to terminal 1. She can walk but it's a long walk. The terminal transfer busses run frequently and are free.

Unfortunately she'll have to go through security and that may be a madhouse as well.

Like I said, that's a tight connection, coming off an international flight and connecting to SWA.

Good luck to your daughter!

Do you think she should take a later flight to Columbus? There is one leaving LAX at 2.45pm but doesn't get into Columbus until 11.30pm and then she has to get to her hotel at Polaris about 20 minutes away.

It's up to you, but as AAFF describes, 2 hours is very very tight for non-US citizens doing such transfer. I'll book the later flights instead if I were you.

I would book the later flight and if she makes it to terminal 1 in time for the earlier flight she can always try to go standby on the 12:40 flight. All she needs to do is show up at the departure gate and ask the gate agent if it's possible. If there are empty seats then she will get on.

By booking the later flight she will have a guaranteed seat no matter what happens.

Agree with the suggestion of booking the later flight and show up at gate if she gets there in time for the earlier flight. SWA is very good about letting you on an earlier flight if there's room. I've done it for years and never had a problem - no change fee, no hassle, no questions.

Agree with the above, and disagree w/AAFF about the frequency of the shuttles. Immigration at T4 can be hectic in the late morning too, so getting out to the street may not be all that quick either.

Every time I wait for a hotel shuttle I see the terminal shuttle about every 5-10 minutes. I don't know what your definition of frequent is but that's frequent enough for me.

map of LAX:

http://www.lawa.org/lax/terminalMap.cfm

Tell your daughter to board <b>A</b> shuttle to get to terminal 1. Any other shuttle will take her outside the airport. The direction of traffic is clockwise so she'll go to terminals 5, 6, 7, 8 before she gets to 1.

LAWA says it's every 12-15 minutes. You're obviously luckier than I am - I've never waited less than 20 min, but as LAX is a frequent O/D point for me rather than xfer maybe my experience isn't statistically significant.

Now that I thought about I will change the frequency to 10-15 minutes. The shuttles to the train station look the same so I may have been seeing a shuttle every few minutes but not every one was an A shuttle.

I thought you had to buy up to full fare in order to standby on Southwest. This has been my experience.

Patty - technically you're correct. But I've found that most gate agents have been very accommodating and flexible. If there's room they'll more likely than not let you on an earlier flight, but it's no guarantee.