Should I take into account the transit time when booking with the same airline?

score:6

Accepted answer

It's worth considering. There is no such thing as perfectly "safe" in this regard, only varying levels of risk.

Typically the airline will allow enough time that the transfer can be made, including luggage, etc, if the first flight arrives on time and everything goes as planned. But it's not a guarantee. If the first flight is delayed for any reason (which is entirely possible) then you may very well miss the connection. The airline is not promising to hold the second flight for you, or anything like that. They do promise to put you on their next available flight to your destination. But if those flights are infrequent, or if they are all full, you may wait for quite a while; you will not have priority over passengers originally ticketed on those flights.

Depending on the cause of the delay and the local laws governing your airports or airlines, you may receive compensation money, or reimburs*m*nt for your meals and lodging during the delay; or you may not.

So it's up to you to weigh the risks and benefits. How important is it to arrive at your destination with the shortest possible layover (in the best case)? How much cheaper is this itinerary, compared to others with longer layovers? How much of an inconvenience would it be if you missed the connection? How late in the day is your connection, and how many more flights are there to your destination? How often is the first flight late? (Usually this statistic is published somewhere.)

Consider all these factors, and then decide if a short connection is an acceptable risk for you. That's the only meaningful sense of the word "safe".

Upvote:6

There is no absolute answer to this question. In theory, the airline does not like missed connections because they have to find some way to re-accommodate you to your final destination, so they have every incentive not to schedule connections that are too tight to make. In practice, there are lots of missed connections every day, especially when the first flight is late.

Personally I try to only book these tight connections if I know there are additional flights later in the day that I could be switched onto if the first flight is late.

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