Stop-over time.

[scottnsilky]

Happy Christmas all, I thought I might ask this question on TripAdvisor, but then thought all you Lemon travellers would have sensible feedback. I'm toying with the idea of going to Sri Lanka in April, probably by a Gulf-based airline, my question is what is the shortest stop-over a sensible person would accept? One flight available has a 75 minute break in Doha, is this long enough? Obviously this is partly subjective, how long would you be comfortable with? My opinion is an hour and a quarter is cutting it fine. If it's too short why does the website offer it?

Thanks for any thoughts,
David

[swill453]

It'll depend a lot on whether this is a single booking with one airline, or two independent bookings.

If the former then the timing can be a bit tighter, as the airline will have a certain level of responsibility for you making the connection.

Scott.

[NomoneyNohoney]

We have flown a few times where the interchange is Riga. The time between flights 45 minutes. Both flights are operated by the same airline, so they know how many passengers are incoming on the first flight.

One time, my wife missed the ongoing connection. The airline weren't interested in her problem, and as it was a nighttime arrival, nothing was open, so she had to sit without food or heat for nearly 12 hours. I found a flight with another operator and route, which unfortunately was another two flights, but the changeover went smoothly. Unfortunately, due to being stranded, that new routing and ticket cost a lot of money, but under the circumstances, there was no other sensible option.

The latest close shave, was when the aircraft was delayed on the first outward leg, and flew half an hour late. At the changeover point, my wife led a charge of six passengers, all trying desperately to get through passengers and customs, to catch the second plane. Fortunately, they held the second plane to allow for these late incomers, so all ended well.

My suggestion and conclusion is that the longer you have at a changeover point, the less you will stress. I'd be comfortable with a two hour gap if that was achievable, but for a long haul flight how many alternatives are there, if that connection is missed? Is it daily flights, or every two or three days? What would be the cost of a replacement ticket for the second leg, if that first ticket isn't transferrable?

[scottnsilky]

Thanks Scott and NomoneyNohoney,
The booking will be Manchester to Colombo via Doha by Qatar Airlines, very cheap at £299, but too short a stop-over for me, I think, Emirates is a little dearer, but slightly longer stop-over.(DXB)
dp

[roger4]

I live in Sri Lanka and often travel with Qatar Airways via Doha. The gate for Colombo seems always to be at the other end of the terminal from the arrivals/departures to/from Europe. It is quite a hike. But, Qatar Airways are really well organised and there are electric cars if you ask for them. The connection time is such that I have never had a problem getting from gate to gate and, so far, my only complaint has been the distance involved.

Of course, if you want to browse through the shops etc, the relatively short connection time may be a disadvantage. For myself, I usually just want to get to my ultimate destination.

However, this week a friend from here was flying back to Belgium and he arrived at Doha on Qatar about 10 minutes after his onward flight had left. Now that may be due to the current dislocation as the runway at Colombo is being re-surfaced (work which is scheduled to finish in April).

[DiamondEcho]

IME airlines won't let you book through-connections with insufficient transit time. So then it's a matter of what they'll allow, vs what might be preferable/cautious. Of course that depends on the airlines and airports involved, the travel season and so on.

I tend to consider how missing a connecting flight would impact me. Might it prejudice a long journey to the eventual destination? Might it auto-cancel hotel bookings there? Might onward connections be rendered impossible [remoter places with only 1-2-3 flights a week]? Been there, and want to avoid it happening again if at all possible.

The more complex a connecting journey is, the more time I give it. I also don't count on getting F+B of much use on board, I plan and [usually] enjoy that at airports even when paying. Thus time at airports is contingency, as well as hopefully a short time to enjoy; I have a glass or two of vino, Mrs DE goes off and checks Duty Free etc. Times flies, and it works for us.

[scottnsilky]

Thank you DE for your thoughts, my feelings at the airport are to board asap, and get to my destination.
Also thanks to roger4 for your first hand knowledge, I'm envious you live there, now I'm retired I keep thinking of moving east, that's my new year's resolution!

[stevensfo]

I also don't count on getting F+B of much use on board, I plan and [usually] enjoy that at airports even when paying. Thus time at airports is contingency, as well as hopefully a short time to enjoy; I have a glass or two of vino, Mrs DE goes off and checks Duty Free etc. Times flies, and it works for us.

What does F+B mean?

We fly Emirates occasionally and last time we got asked if we could volunteer to change our flight due to over-booking. So they put us on Quatar. It turned out to be a very good decision. Our connection in Doha was amazingly fast, whereas with Emirates, we would have 5 hours in Dubai. I don't know if you've been to Dubai airport, but it's so big that you can walk for hours and just want to crash and sleep, especially at 3am. The toilets always have queues and everybody looks like they're in Purgatory and praying to be humanely put to sleep.

But still not quite as bad as Luton!

Steve

[DiamondEcho]

What does F+B mean?
We fly Emirates occasionally and last time we got asked if we could volunteer to change our flight due to over-booking. So they put us on Quatar. It turned out to be a very good decision. Our connection in Doha was amazingly fast, whereas with Emirates, we would have 5 hours in Dubai. I don't know if you've been to Dubai airport, but it's so big that you can walk for hours and just want to crash and sleep, especially at 3am. The toilets always have queues and everybody looks like they're in Purgatory and praying to be humanely put to sleep.
But still not quite as bad as Luton!
Steve

Food+Beverages.
I've yet to fly Qatar but will be doing so in a few weeks time. I have flown Emirates and found them to be pretty good [business class was nice, eco was nothing that special IMHO, IIRC you have to watch for code-shares on non Emirates planes though].
Dubai can be quite a confusing airport. As I recall it has or had a glitzy new terminal and then a connected really pretty old labyrinthine one. Not sure, just recall being wowed by it one time, and then wondering if I was in a different country the next. Plus they had full x-ray screening on arrival even in transit with all the queues/associated chaos etc.
This is my first time on Qatar and in transit via Doha, so your experiences are encouraging.
[Yep, I've witnessed the utter zoo these gulf-state transit-stops can be, and am really hoping to avoid similar again].

[Satsuma]

A bit late to this one, but I was on a recent flight back to the UK. We had been delayed by about an hour or so departing.

As we came in to land, crew made an announcement to the effect of "we have two passengers who have a really tight connection for a flight to Australia, please can everyone else let them off first".

How helpful, I thought! Until we landed and it was like the airplane scene from World War Z when they have all turned. I have no idea if those poor people made it!

(That said, the crew could easily have moved them into business class for the final descent, loads of spare seats there. Or even told us what row they were sat in so at least some considerate people in front could have stayed sat down for a minute longer)