Is 1 hour enough time for an international connection in Philly (PHL)?

April 11, 2010 5:40 PM

Is 1 hour sufficient to go from PHL terminal F (US Airways Express) all the way over to Terminal A-W (US Airways Int'l departures)?

Am flying to Rome this week, with one domestic connection in Philadelphia. I have a bit more than 1 hour to go from US Airways Express terminal over the International departures terminal. I assume I'll have to leave and reenter security during this transfer.

I'm a little concerned that 1 hour is cutting it a bit close. Any thoughts on international connections through PHL?

posted by eirelander to Travel & Transportation around Philadelphia, PA (9 answers total)

You should not need to leave security, but this is a bit of a long walk. Plan on walking fastish.
posted by JMOZ at 5:52 PM on April 11, 2010

Best answer: No need to leave and reenter security; when you get into terminal F, you walk to the central area of the terminal and board a shuttle bus (busses run every couple minutes) right to terminal A. From there, you just need to keep walking down to the West side of the terminal (past my PHL secret hangout spot ;) and over to your gate. Perfectly fine if all goes according to plan.

1 hour is absolutely fine for this if your inbound flight is ontime. The commuter flights that come into terminal F are notoriously unreliable, so your hour layover could quickly shrink into something impossible. If your flight gets in late, talk to the crew and the gate agent at Terminal F to see if anything can be done to zip you over to your gate quickly.

Happy travels!
posted by zachlipton at 5:52 PM on April 11, 2010

Zach is right - an hour is fine if your inbound on time, but I've been doing a lot of US Airways Express flights through Philly lately, and it seems like they've been delayed about half the time, though that could just be the routes I've been taking.

The very worst case, though, is that your flight's delayed, you blow your connection and US Airways rebooks you on some other connection through a Star Alliance partner airline to get you in to Rome a little later. It's happened to me before on other trans-Atlantic routes, and it sucks, but it's not nearly so unpleasant as spending the week before brooding on the possibility would be.
posted by strangely stunted trees at 6:05 PM on April 11, 2010

I am guessing your flight to Rome is in the late afternoon or early evening--if so I would not worry about the distance between the gates as much as the possibility of a late connecting flight. The later in the day the greater the odds of your connecting flight being delayed. I assume you have booked this as a single ticket with US Airways--if not US Airways has no responsibility for a missed or delayed connection--If you did book as a single ticket, or even if you did not, make sure you have enough articles in your carry on to get you through for 36 hours in case your luggage is delayed If you booked the flights separately or through a second party I would make sure you are not liable for a missed flight to Rome--Odds are everything will go as scheduled.
posted by rmhsinc at 6:09 PM on April 11, 2010

Yes, you can do this no problem. A few months ago I was waiting to pick someone up and their flight was delayed by an hour. I amused myself by walking the full length of the airport. As I recall it took about 20 minutes end to end. That was without luggage, of course, but an hour will still be plenty of time.
posted by Eddie Mars at 6:41 PM on April 11, 2010

Yes, no problem.
posted by dmd at 6:58 PM on April 11, 2010

I flew into Philly from Madrid on Tuesday, and had to make my connecting flight to LGA from terminal F (so, in essence, the reverse of what you're doing). A word of caution: do not be tempted to walk (or run) from Terminal F to Terminal A -- do as zachlipton says, and take the shuttle. You will have to re-clear security if you choose to walk; taking the shuttle exempts you from going through security again.
posted by lassie at 6:58 PM on April 11, 2010

Note that there are two shuttles: one to Terminals B/C/D and one to Terminal A. They all connect on the other end (the only place you can't walk without reclearing security is in/out of Terminal F), but the Terminal A shuttle will cut down your walk a fair bit. It's fairly well marked when you go to board the bus in Terminal F.

If you're really running late for whatever reason, hail one of the electric carts that continuously buzz through the terminal and ask for help. Then you get to be that obnoxious guy making everyone else get out of your way!
posted by zachlipton at 8:56 PM on April 11, 2010

Response by poster: Thanks, everyone, for the feedback and peace of mind. I'll take the shuttle and hope for the best on my connecting flight into PHL. If the weather is looking dicey I might try to standby earlier in the day.
posted by eirelander at 4:51 AM on April 12, 2010