I'm sure it will be fine in Atlanta and if not then worrying now isn't going to solve it!

I'm only in Crewe so will be coming up to Manchester on the morning of the 23rd. Are you planning on booking into a lounge? Much more comfy for waiting around I've found so I was looking at the Escape lounge in T2 if anyone else is interested.

Diane

No not bothering with the lounge, will get a breakfast at hotel then just look around the shops after security, maybe grab a coffee.

Will be keeping my eye open for others on our trip.

Mick.

ps: Couple of years ago JY always included the lounge on long haul trips, shame it doesn't happen was good meeting point for everyone.

Just recieved more information on this holiday and the connecting time in Atlanta as now been cut from 1hour 50 minutes to 1 hour 31minutes.

Now I'm getting a little worried that does seem awefully tight to get through security, collect your luggage, through customs, hand luggage in again.

The flight from Atlanta to Denver has been moved forward from 17-45 to 17-26.

What hapens if first flight is late ?

Is there a contingenty plan ?

Even if we make it can we be confident our luggage will ?

After paying so much for a major holiday i'd be very upset if i had to miss part of it because not enough time as been allowed.

My booking ref is - ******.

I'm starting to wonder whether taking the "Manchester dedicated" option is wise as on the London departures they fly direct to Denver. Feel having a connection on route isn't the same as travelling tme is so much longer. May aswell have changed in London then direct to Denver.

Mick

I've had chat with my colleagues about your message and hope that I can to someway go to answering your questions.

The flights for this holiday are on a through ticket from Manchester to Denver and all flights are with Delta who will have all the information about where their passengers on their flights are flying from and to. The flights have been changed by Delta (which unfortunately we have no control over) but these new times do still meet the minimum connection times that they set. Should your first flight be delayed which prevents your connection, Delta will move you on to the next available flight. When you arrive in the US, you will go through immigration, collect your baggage from the international carousel and take it to the domestic one.

I can put you in touch with one of our customer service team if you would like to discuss this further.

Kindest regards,

Julia

Thanks for your reply but checking Delta flights there isn't another until the following morning so if the worst happens we will miss our night in Denver. As we have only one night in Denver and would be leaving early the following morning I would imagine if we encounter problems it would have a major knock on effect on the holiday.

Also I assume there is 20+ of us travelling and I doubt very much if Delta have that many spare seats on the next flight.

All we can do is keep our fingers crossed.

Mick

On a positive note in my experience cross Atlantic flights often arrive slightly earlier than expected while if there are delays its with internal flights. So both are in our favour.

I'm confident if everything is on time we'll d it comfortably, chcked the airport website and it looks like the new international terminal is very efficient and we should get through ok.

We then need to see which concorse we need for the Denver flight and jump on the airport transportation (hop on hop off train), been before and its quite easy.

Mick

The worst place to clear US customs was Chicago last year for Route 66 took about 3 hours, but it was a few days before the Ryder Cup. Even John Inverdale had to wait in the queue behind us they wouldn't let the BBC crew push to the front.

Regards,

Steve

I was in Chicago for Ryder Cup then - incoming to O'Hare wasn't too bad, my tip about watching for the extra desks being opened up worked well then, but leaving on the Monday was pretty hectic

US Customs in SF was 30 minutes!!!!

Regards

Steve

Well the plane was over a hour late leaving manchester, so we arrived in Atlanta leaving us a hour to clear US customs and recheck for the Denver flight. It took 45 mins to clear customs and the shuttle broke so we missed the plane by 5 mins. About a third of the party were booked on a later flight to denver, the rest of us are in a hotel in Atlanta, hoping to travel up to Rapid city via Minneapolis in the morning.

Regards

Steve

Oh no! So sorry to read this!

Regards,

SteveW

Cheers,

Bob

Hope this mishap does not ruin your entire holiday. Have a great one.

Regards

Jaya

Mick

Cheers,

Bob

I think things might be slightly different now!

Mick W. Perhaps when you retun from your holiday you could tell us how you got on at Atlanta.

Rip,

Basically we didn't make our connection as you may have seen on other posts regarding this. Delta got 8 of our group on a later flight and put the other 17 of us up in a hotel for a few hours after waiting around almost 5 hours at Atlanta airport.

We had to be up the following morning at 4am to fly to Mineapolis for another 12 hours+ at a different airport before eventually been flown to Rapid City (arriving at hotel just before midnight on day 2) to catch up with the rest of our group who made Denver.

Some of our luggage (mine included) got sent to Denver despite Delta assuring us it was in a holding bay in Atlanta and would be flown with us to Rapid City. Thankfully our comrades saw it on the carousel and took it off and walked out of the airport unchallenged with it, got to question security at Denver airport on that one.

So basically two days and two evenings lost from our holiday due to a too short connection time.

Mick