aliwnec10 - Because I'm always interested about plane travel. If you look at the "airlines" forum, you'll see me post often. Also on flyertalk.com.

Just trying to help. Nothing to alarm about.

The big deal is that I want you to understand what flights you're booked onto. There's a huge difference between a flight making a 25-minute fuel stop, or if you're booked into a 25-minute connection. If it's a fuel stop, you're fine - BUT NOT SUCH FLIGHT EXISTS ON AA. If you're booked into a 25-minute connection at LAX, then it's "illegal" in airline lingo. You will not make the connection and the airline doesn't have the obligation to rebook you on your next flight.

Anyways, I believe you're booked onto AA161 LAX-OGG 6:00pm 8:26pm

Your JFK-LAX flight may be AA117 2:30-5:17pm. So you'll have 43 minutes, which is probably legal, but tight. You may want to consider switching to the previous JFK flight, AA3 12:00pm 2:51pm, which is will give you just over 3 hours at LAX.

Or switch to a DFW connection, or to a LGA-ORD-OGG one.

Anyways, I'm just trying to help. If you don't want me to contribute to your thread, I can certainly use my time on other things.

Look i didn't mean to offend you, i just thought it was a little odd that you were so interested. But to each their own right?

We're on flight 117 American Airlines on October 9, 2006 leaving JFK to LAX which gets in at 5:17pm. Then we're on flight# 161 to OGG at 6pm, which gets in at 8:26pm. Other than calling the airline and specifically asking again, what can i do? If the operator didn't know if there was a plane change, why wouldn't she have just said "i don't know?"

aliwnec10 - You don't need to call anybody if you're comfortable with the 43 minute connection. You don't need to get luggage, and you'll have the boarding pass of the next flight. But you will need to get off your 767-200 flight and go board a 757-200 at a different gate. All AA flights use Terminal 4. For example, if you fly today, flight 117 will arrive at gate 49A while 161 wiill depart from 47B. Should be a short walk.

Now, about this 43 minute connection and your risk. First, schedules may very well change, likely more than once, between now and next October. So, your 43 minute connection may become a 35-minute one, or a 60-minute one. No way to tell this far out. So, check your reservations every few months.

Second, I pulled up the TOUCH DOWN time of recent AA117 JFK-LAX. The flight is scheduled to ARRIVE AT GATE at 5:35pm in the current timetable. But just looking at flights in the past month, these flights didn't make it on the ground by 5:35pm, let alone the gate:

12/15 6:17pm
12/13 5:53pm
12/12 5:56pm
12/5 6:56pm
12/4 10:16pm
12/2 6:00pm
12/1 5:38pm
11/27 6:12pm
11/23 6:17pm

You have to decide if it's worth the risk to take this connection. The next non-stop to OGG is the next morning. You'll need to pay for your hotel in LA if the JFK flight was late due to weather or traffic. Or they may put you on the later HNL fligth (~8pm) that arrives Honolulu around midnight.

Personally, I don't like such a short connection, especially since the consequence of missing it is not too pretty.

aliwec you understand you are in a travel chatroom and this sort of thing is fun for us?

Is this your first chatroom experience?

We are travel geeks my dear! Its really not unusual that rkwan gets a kick out of looking up options, next time she will be more knowledgable when she goes.

My daughter who has a fear of flying was once scheduled to Hawaii on Aloha airlines. She was so nervous she almost cancelled the trip . At check in she told the agent how nervous she was and asked about their safety record
and was reassured that they had a good record.
As she was boarding a flight attendent tapped her on the shoulder and said "follow me girls" and led them to the first class section.
They had been upgraded to first class,
drank champagne all the way there and were treated royally by the staff .
Couldnt have been a better experience -

Thats a nice story sunbum

Rkkwan... you're really starting to scare me. What am i supposed to do? I hate flying to begin with so i can't see waiting around in an airport for 2 hours. Just so you know... i called again and the person i spoke w/said i'd have to change planes (flight #'s are different). Why would the first person tell me different? I never would have booked that flight if i'd known.

In my experience, on every flight i've been on, we're always early. But the recent landings you pulled up say just the opposite. What should i do?

aliwnec - If you're not an experienced flyer, you shouldn't chance a 43-minute connection for a flight to Hawaii. You'll be much more comfortable booking the earlier flight, AA3, that arrives at LAX around 3pm. Three hours at an airport is tolerable. Eat, read, whatever. You can relax.

Otherwise, all you'll be doing on your 6-hour JFK-LAX flight is worry about missing your connection. I would not chance that.

The 43 minute connection time in LAX is very much doable, if your incoming flight get's in on time. Terminal 4 is ver manageable. I's no more than a 10 minute walk from one end to the other, and in this case, if the gates stay the same, it's practically a minute or less walk.

That said, I totally agree with rkkwan on many of the issues raised.

There will be at least 2-3 schedule changes between what you have now and the actual schedules in OCT2006. Check your reservations about every 2 months. VERY IMPORTANT.

If the conection time goes under 40 minutes, AA will at no cost to you change to an earlier flight at that time. 40 minuts is the "legal" connection time for AA from domestic to Hawaii flights in LAX. So, right now you're fine and if you don't want to pay for any changes, just keep the schedule as is.

As far as if missing a connection because of a delay flight from JFK? If you do miss the connection, and this is the last flight to OGG for the day, AA will at their expense, put you up at a local LAX airpor hotel for the night and give you few $s for food and you can catch the next day flight, but are you willing to take that chance? If you are willing to take that chance and understand that possibility, don't change anything, and in most cases it won't happen, but there is always that chance with close connections to a last flight out to your final destination. If you decide to change to an earlier flight now, you also have to understand that with most of the coach fares and some business fares, there is a fee involved when changing a flight.

BTW, rkwaan is an old timer around here and s/he knows a great deal about airline business, so listen to the advice because most of the time it's great advice.

I'm a very frequent AA flyer (over 130,000 miles this year) so I know AA specifically.

The schedule as is, is very much doable, but as stated above, it will change, that's very normal with the airlines these days. Keep on top of the situation by checking your itinerary occasionally.

rkkwan -- could you pls tell me where you find flight touchdown times such as the ones for flights that you cite in your response at 12:18 on 12/17. I'm not looking for the flight you show, but for other ones. thanks

AAfrequentflyer... thank you so much for your advice. You definitely made me less nervous about everything and i think i'm going to take your advice and wait. I'll just keep checking my flights.

rkkwan... i really didn't mean to offend you. I've been posting on here for about 7 6 months now and you just caught me off guard with the amount of interest you had. I see that you were just trying to help and thank you for that.

One more question... if the plane is late getting into the airport, if i tell the flight attendent and there are other people headed to maui, would the airport hold the plane (if its only a matter of minutes)? I've heard of this happening before.

It depends.... if there are more than few connecting passengers on your fight and it's only minutes late, they may, but generally they don't.

Allow me to correct something from my earlier post.

When I talked about AA paying for a hotel if missing a connection, I was thinking about myself. They do take care of their top tier status holders.

If the delayed flight is beyond AA's control, i.e. weather, ATC hold, major mechanical, etc., AA may not be so accomodating to the average Joe/Jane. They may give you a hotel room, but it's also possible they may choose to only give you a distressed rate cert at one of the local airport hotels. It's also possible the may not do anything at all if the delay is weather, ATC related.

But that's months away, so this is nothing to worry about at this point.

One more correction -

When I said - "AA may choose not to do anything", I meant that they may choose not to help you with accomodations for the night. They will re-book you on the next available flight to OGG.

aliwnec - Hey, no big deal. I'm still posting in this thread, right?

About the hotel thing, as AAFF says, if the delay was due to weather or traffic control (i.e. basically anything but a mechanical), AA won't pay for your hotel. Usually they'll arrange hotels nearby at a discount rate, or some coupons.

dona - I get the info from this new but very powerful website: www.flightaware.com Register to get data from further back. Another site with some data is www.flightstats.com, but they have the data arranged into categories, and you can't look up specific dates. Data can also be accessible from the government: www.bts.gov. But flightaware is the place I go now.

Thanks so much for the info, rkkwan. I'll check the sites out. One always worries about connections and knowing what time flights typically arrive will be helpful.

Sorry this is off-topic. What a cool web site. Now I'm tracking my son's flight. Thanks rkkwan!

Yes, that flightaware.com site is the bomb. You can search for specific flights, you can search for all flights to/from an airport, you can search for all airborne flights of a particular plane type.

The maps are huge with current altitude and groundspeed. If a plane is put on hold, you can often see the loop on the flight path. Maps also have weather superimposed on them. There are flight routes currently being used.

I can easily spend hours just reading this and that.