1

We will arrive on United from Heathrow and have 1 hour 45 minute connecting time to get to our flight to Portland, OR. Will that work?

Karlson
  • 45,168
  • 10
  • 108
  • 198
user24737
  • 11
  • 1
  • 3
    Welcome to Travel.SE. We will be better able to answer your question if you tell us what passport you are traveling on, what airline your connecting flight is on, whether you are booked on a single ticket, and whether you have any checked luggage; please edit your question to include this any any other relevant information you may think of. – choster Jan 02 '15 at 06:48
  • What time you arrive also matters. If early morning, then you would sail through. I did once, arrived at around 0600 hrs, cleared immigration and took my baggage and changed terminals in an hour. And walk fast to the front of the line, more the people ahead of you more will be the delay for you. – DumbCoder Jan 02 '15 at 14:40

1 Answers1

1

If both of your flights are on the same ticket, and you miss your connection despite doing the best to catch it, then United will re-book you free of charge to the next available connection to PDX. This may answer an implied question.

United would not sell you such a ticket if travelers tend to miss such a connection. They would lose money in the long run otherwise.

Having said that, 1h45 is not a lot, but often doable. If you are unlucky and stand in line for a long period of time at immigration, security is crowded, or you get a more thorough check at immigration, then you will however miss it (unless your second flight is delayed). There are a few things that you can do to reduce risk of missing your plane:

  1. Try to get a seat more towards the front of the plane. In the majority of cases, the front door will be used for de-boarding.

  2. Should your incoming flight be delayed, after de-boarding, move swiftly and try to overtake people on the walking way to immigration if this can be done in a non-rude way (often possible by, for example, taking the stairs next to escalators). There is nothing morally wrong with this approach if you have a tight connection.

  3. Should there be a long queue before customs and time is running out, politely ask people in front if you may overtake, mentioning your tight connection.

  4. Before going through security again, see if there is a member of the airline staff nearby and ask if she can put you more in front of the queue. They are allowed to do that. Of course, only do so if it becomes relatively obvious that you would otherwise miss your flight.

If 1-4 sound like stress to you: they are. But for the ease of mind, keep in mind that the airline should rebook you if you miss the connection due to unavoidable queues, even if you do not follow tips 1-4. Especially if you are travelling with children, tips 1-2 are not always doable.

DCTLib
  • 9,195
  • 33
  • 46
  • Do you need to go through security at Newark? –  Jan 02 '15 at 11:18
  • 1
    Yes, when arriving in the US from a non-US place that does not offer US immigration and customs pre-clearance (Dublin, Canada, ...), you need to collect your checked luggage, go through customs, and check it in again. Because you have been in touch with your checked luggage then (so you could have taken out large liquid bottles, for example), you subsequently need to go through a security check again. – DCTLib Jan 02 '15 at 11:19
  • @DCTLib: Moreover, my memory is hazy, but I seem to recall that after clearing customs at EWR, you are actually landside - you could walk right in and out of the airport. So of course you need to clear security again to get airside. – Nate Eldredge Jan 02 '15 at 19:35