Paris CDG Airport - Transfers

[mealies]

Hi
This is my first post so go easy :)

I need peoples advice on what to do. I am off to South Africa on Saturday (28/10/06) to see family, now my mum bought all the tickets at once so we could all sit together, except i am flying from Heathrow to CDG then on to Jo'burg. and the rest are flying from Birmingham and we are meeting at CDG.

The problem is that my heathrow plane gets into CDG at 10:25pm and my flight to Jo'burg leaves at 11:15pm 50 minutes later. Both flights are on Air france, i arrive at Terminal 2F and leave 2F so it shouldn't be too far at least. Will this be enough time to make the transfer, will it be a long way between the gates?

Apologies for the long post, would appreciate any help

Andrew

[EDIspotter]

if a/f let you book it - it must be.

I'm doing a transfer there on 3/11, and have 10 mins more than you.

Luggage will be checked thru.

[manintheback]

50 mins from scheduled arrival to scheduled departure?, thats very very thin. I have NEVER made a transfer at CDG under 1hr 15. Best of luck, I hope AF have a later flight to Jburg tho. As mentioned on another recent thread, dont expect your luggage on the same flight

[Globaliser]

AF seem to book a lot of connections based on a 45 minute minimum connecting time. You need everything to go right, if you are to make the connection, and there is no margin if you're connecting to the last flight of the day (which you are).

It would have been more comfortable to book the LHR-CDG flight one hour earlier (1915-2125), which would then give you 110 minutes to connect at CDG.

There's not very much you can do about it now, but one thing that might be worth trying is to go to LHR early and ask whether AF might have space to take you on the earlier flight so as to give you a bigger connection time at CDG. Or, even, go and see whether you could get on the 1700 (arr 1910) or the 1800 (arr 2010) - after all, the rest of your family are arriving at CDG at 1925 so you could keep them company by going early. (If you want to, that is ... ;))

[Flock1]

Hi,

Sorry to hijack this thread slightly, but reading it has got me worried. Not CDG this time, but Zurich with Swiss.

Budapest - Zurich arrives 16.25

Zurich - Manchester departs 17.05

Which means a transfer of only 40 min. I have no idea what Zurich is like, so any information about whether I'll be able to make the connection will be much appreciated. (Assuming everything is on time...)

Flock1

[flybywire]

Hi Flock1,

while I have not had good experiences at CDG (although I had to transfer between terminal 2B to 2F every time) I have always found ZRH to be quite easy to move around 0 it's also much smaller than CDG!

I hope this will help you, have a look:

http://www.zurich-airport.com/dokumente/zrh_etagenplan.pdf

http://www.zurich-airport.com/ZRH/?ID_site=1&le=2&d=cnt/ASTY/EN/map_overview.asp&sp=en&u=1&t=Site%20Maps&ID_level1=4&ID_level2=64&a2=64

happy flying

FBW

[CHIVILCOY]

There's not very much you can do about it now, but one thing that might be worth trying is to go to LHR early and ask whether AF might have space to take you on the earlier flight so as to give you a bigger connection time at CDG. Or, even, go and see whether you could get on the 1700 (arr 1910) or the 1800 (arr 2010) - after all, the rest of your family are arriving at CDG at 1925 so you could keep them company by going early. (If you want to, that is ... ;))



Best advice i've seen in a long time.:ok:

[mealies]

Hi Guys

I am at Heathrow now. Spoken to the Customer Services rep who said that 45minutes is minimum but she said if there were any delays happening when i was checking in, they would bump me to an earlier flight so i can make the connection.

I reckon my lugguage is gonna get delayed, so i packed some underwear in my hand lugguage. :) Better safe than sorry.

I think i will go back and ask to be put on an earlier flight however my tickets are not re-bookable so i am not sure whether this is possible.

Andrew

[EDIspotter]

Wonder if he made it ?

I go through a similar experience on Friday morning......

[mealies]

Hi Guys

Back from my short break. First of all my lugguage made it to Jo'burg on the same plane i was on, i have to say full credit to the guys cause i ran off the first plane ran through customs and immediately boarded the plane, so there was not much turnaround time.

Apart from the french Hand lugguage check people being rude, making racist remarks about the english and giving me a bollocking about sunscreen in my hand lugguage the trip was really cool. I don't know why,

but my girlfriend got through both times without taking shoes, belts off. I on the other hand got caught both times and had to take my shoes off, belt off jersey off and then go for a more thorough search with my bag being emptied and taken apart. Which was annoying but did not spoil a great holiday.

Thanks for all the advice

Andrew