Stopovers & U.S. Immigration

neilbond007

ferf1223 wrote: »

Is it? when I lived there it seemed quite busy (not relative to a London airport, but for regional US airports), though I suppose it's been 9 years so a lot can change.

Maybe it's because it always seemed to cost 2x as much to fly from Cincinnati than it did to drive to Indy and fly from there.

Down from 800 odd flights a day to about 180.

All but 1 Delta concourse closed. (T2 still open for all other carriers).
It was the #1 expensive airport in the US - due to Delta - but now it's dropped to about 6th
As soon as a low cost airline came in Delta dropped their prices. Kicked the cheapie out and raised their prices again.

It's due to Delta merging with Northwest. They have the NW hub at Detroit which is about 4 hours away.

Rumours are Southwest will stop their Louisville / Columbus operations and move to Cincy. I hope so!! At the end of the day it's a very nice airport. When inside and out

rmiller

I travel back to California ALOT and it really depends on the airport you are connecting in. For example, JFK can get pretty packed as can Chicago.

I was in the situation where I had an hour and have to get through Immigration and Customs in a connection (Chicago to SF) and it was fine. I explained to the Security person at the beginning of the line and showed them my ticket and they took me to the front. I have never needed more than 2 hours to make a connection in the states.

Have a great time in SD, you MUST visit Old Town!

Alan_Bowen

Flying to San Diego, you need to make your first, transatlantic flight, as long as possible and your second, as short as possible. Whilst service still exists on the international sector, free food, soft drinks and films, there is either no service at all or you pay for everything on the internal flight, even if it is six hours from New York to San Diego. You best bet is probably United via San Francisco which has a relatively new and efficent International Terminal, I would avoid Chicago and New York like the plague.

Foxtbh

Would you not be better off with a direct flight to LAX and then a train or car to SD?

ferf1223

I wouldn't want to get off a 10+ hour flight and have to drive in LA myself. Unless the plan is to spend a few days in LA at some point, I would want a plane to get me to SD even if it meant a connection.

duchy

I love these "experts" who try and scare people with totally wrong info <rolls eyes>

I've given up trying to predict which airports will have long lines for immigration or not -there's often no rhyme or reason to it. I've missed a connection at Cinncinatti due to long lines -and waltzed through immigration at Vegas -yet other trips had entirely the opposite experience.

In December I managed to miss 3 out of 4 flights on a trip to Vegas. London to LAX was fine but left late so I missed the last AA flight to Vegas -so they simply transferred me onto United instead leaving in an hour. Coming back was a bit more serious as I had a seperate ticket Vegas to New York with Delta-then back onto the AA ticket New York to London. The rodeo was finishing in Vegas and security was a ZOO and I missed my flight-Delta rebooked me for 3 hours later-when I got to New York I was a little concerned -but they just smiled and rebooked me at no charge onto the next London flight leaving in an hour.

sideswipe

Well I'll be flying out of Leeds/Bradford to Amsterdam and then from there it looks like I have the option of flying on to either Atlanta, JFK, Detroit, Minneapolis, LAX, Seattle or Philadelphia. My flight would be with KLM/Delta as they seem to share the routes out of amsterdam. To be honest I was favouring Detroit as the immigration wait times looked to be lower and from what I've seen on current flight information, there's a pretty good chance that I would fly in and out of the same terminal. However, Alan's comment regarding the service and inflight entertainment makes me wonder if I'd be better flying into LAX instead.

One other thing I wanted to clarify was seat reservations as I've been caught out with this before when I flew to New York a few years ago with Continental. It's most likely that I'll be booking my flight through Delta's website and I wanted to clarify how far in advance you can make seat reservations, and can I make them for all three connections at the same time. Then the same thing again for the return journey. I know if I fly via Seattle the Seattle-San Diego leg is with Alaska Airlines or if I fly via LAX, LAX to San Diego is with Skywest, I don't know things vary between airlines or not.

Voyager2002

ferf1223 wrote: »

I wouldn't want to get off a 10+ hour flight and have to drive in LA myself. Unless the plan is to spend a few days in LA at some point, I would want a plane to get me to SD even if it meant a connection.

I do agree. I would just add, the train ride between LA and San Diego is very pleasant, with comfortable seats and a good view. I'm not sure how easy it is to get between LAX and the railway station, nor how much I would enjoy this after a ten-hour flight.

Alan_Bowen

The train ride is great but the station is 20 plus miles from the airport in LAX so it is not a realistic option with lots of luggage, nor would ever consider driving to San Diego after that flight, I did it once and fell asleep at the wheel at 8pm local time luckily only a few hundred yards from the hotel and with nothing coming the other way, but never again. KLM isn't great as an airline but if you are determined to fly from Leeds Bradford there aren't many choices. Of the flight options Detroit is an OK airport but it leaves you a very long onward flight, Seattle is very good but is still 2 and half hours to SAN, but I do like Alaska Airlines. The best thing about LAX, once you get through immigration is that the flights, on small 30 seater commuter planes, operate every thiry minutes so it doesn't matter if you miss one, whereas for the other arriving airports you may have hours to wait for another flight

sideswipe

Alan_Bowen wrote: »

The train ride is great but the station is 20 plus miles from the airport in LAX so it is not a realistic option with lots of luggage, nor would ever consider driving to San Diego after that flight, I did it once and fell asleep at the wheel at 8pm local time luckily only a few hundred yards from the hotel and with nothing coming the other way, but never again. KLM isn't great as an airline but if you are determined to fly from Leeds Bradford there aren't many choices. Of the flight options Detroit is an OK airport but it leaves you a very long onward flight, Seattle is very good but is still 2 and half hours to SAN, but I do like Alaska Airlines. The best thing about LAX, once you get through immigration is that the flights, on small 30 seater commuter planes, operate every thiry minutes so it doesn't matter if you miss one, whereas for the other arriving airports you may have hours to wait for another flight

KLM only seem to operate the route direct to LAX, all the other routes are operated by Delta and smaller airlines for the shorter legs.

Seattle did seem a good option for entering the U.S. but the stopover time was just over two hours, and I would probably have to change terminals, so I wasn't sure if 2 hours would be enough time. However, I suppose anything could happen no matter which route I chose to take.

The return journey going via Seattle only gives me a 1.5 hour stopover but obviously there's no immigration to go through on the return journey, but there is only one flight per day out of Seattle to Amsterdam, so it might be awkward if I missed it. Going via Detroit seems to be the best route in terms of no. of flights per day, but it could be a bit of boring flight if there's no inflight entertainment between San Diego and Detroit.

The good thing is though I don't necessarilly have to take the same route on the return journey I could change it if I wanted to, so I have plenty of options.

I wouldn't consider taking the train from L.A. either, it just seems like more hassle and I don't think it's a good idea after such a long flight.