I have been pricing flights for my SE Asia trip in Feb/March 2011. I'll be flying Delta since that is the carrier I'm accummulating miles with currently. One option for my return flight is to depart Bangkok and connect at Tokyo Narita for a flight to Atlanta. The connection time at Narita is 1 hour 40 minutes.

Not having been to Narita before I'm wondering if 1 hour 40 minutes is enough time to connect. When booking flights I tend to go with lengthy connection times to be on the "safe side" and 1 hour 40 minutes is pushing my comfort level. What has your experience been?

You'll be totally fine, especially if you're on the same DL ticket. Vast majority of those flying DL on Asia-NRT flights continue on a DL NRT-US flight.

Rkkwan...


Thanks! My "gut" was saying..."it's ok"...but my head was saying..."get more information"!

I think it is fine. Your baggage will be checked all the way through to Atlanta, and Delta should be able to issue you boarding passes for both sectors when you check-in at Bangkok, which saves time. You don’t need to go through Immigration in Japan as you are in transit. It is most likely that your flight will arrive and depart from the same terminal (as you have the same airline for both sectors), which should be Terminal 1, so again you don't need a lot of time. You most likely will have to go through a security line at some point at Narita, but IMO that should not take any significant time.

Your only issue IMO would be if the Bangkok flight is really late and you have to change terminals. For international flights, in my experience they tend to be on time; as you usually have a dedicated aircraft for that flight, as opposed to a shuttle or waiting for a plane to arrive from another destination, which is what leads to delays. You can probably satisfy yourself on the terminal issue by looking at http://www.narita-airport.jp as you get closer to your flight date.

I am doing a similar flight from HK-NYC in December with a 1.5 hour layover in Narita and am not at all concerned. I have done somewhat longer layovers in Narita before, and have not needed anywhere near 1.5 hours to complete the transfer.

Cicerone,

Thanks for the information. It's very helpful to me, hearing others experiences. Looks like I have nothing to worry about, unless the BKK flight is late, but since it departs BKK at 5:40am I'm assuming it's the first (and maybe only) Delta flight out and the plane should be there. Of course I have no control over any possible equipment problems or weather delays...maybe that would just mean an extra day or two in Bangkok!