Hi. We'll be flying from Charlotte to JFK (terminal 8)to catch a flight (terminal 1 departure) to Paris in June. We'll obviously go through security in Charlotte, but my question is about JFK- will we have to go through security again when we get there?
The reason I ask is because there are two flights we are looking at taking from from Charlotte to JFK, one arriving closer to departure time (5 hours prior)than the other(3 hours prior). Thanks in advance for any insight.
You will have to go through security again. 3 hours enough but of course the flight from Charlotte could be delayed.
I'm not sure you'll have to go through security again. The one time I changed planes at JFK, I didn't have to go through security there, even though it was a long distance between gates. I was in a secure area the whole time. It was a domestic flight all the way, but I'm not sure that would make a difference. Of course, the fact that it occurred before increased security measures may have made a difference. Sometimes you can get the answer by looking at the airport's web site.
Take the 3 hour differential, that will be plenty as long as your flight is less than 2 hours delayed. But here's an idea, and this worked well for us the one time it was necessary. But this will only work if your flights are on 1 ticket. Before you go to the airport in Charlotte, check on your flight. And not just your flight, but figure out where it is coming from, if that flight is on time, and see if you can figure this back as far as you can during that day. And if there is going to be a significant delay, talk to the airline as soon as you get to Charlotte, explain to them that it looks like your flight is delayed and you will not make your long haul flight, and what will they do for you there to make sure you get to Paris overnight. And the important thing you have to know here to make this work, is you yourself have to know what other options they have in terms of flights, and whether there are seats available. And you will tell this to them, so that they know that you are aware of what they can do. it will really help if you have not yet checked your bags when you do this.
This worked when we had the issue. We were flying Philly->Boston->Zurich->Budapest, an unfortunate routing that we did through Expedia when we were inexperienced, all starting with and code-shared on USAir. We were already miffed since USAir also has a direct Philly to Zurich, and I was prepared to try and get us switched to it anyway, knowing there were a few seats. The day of the trip, there was rain up and down the east coast, thunderstorms, and our first flight had 4 different flights up and down the coast before getting to us. And before leaving for the airport I could see it was a good 90 minutes behind already, meaning we would not make our 90 minute connection in Boston. As soon as we were through security we went to the US Air desk airside (we don't check baggage!) and explained the situation. Attendant looked at us first as if we were trying to pull something, then checked, and saw we were correct. And there was enough time for her to put us on the direct flight to Zurich. Notes--of course this meant an old USAir 767 rather than a nice SwissAir 330 with better service and it was a truly lousy flight, and a 4 1/2 hour layover in Zurich without cash, as we could not update our travel plans now with the bank, but we were there timely,. And we also knew that the Zurich flight from Boston was the last Europe flight from there that night. I checked the next day, and our original Boston flight did in fact land at Boston at about the time the Zurich flight left.
For terminal 8 to 1 you DO need to go through security again. To get from 8 to 1 you have to exit the secure area and take the air train 1 stop. The airtrain itself is fast and frequent, but can be a long walk and security lines are variable.
3 hours should be fine. However delays happen and I’d be more comfortable with a longer time if possible. I did it in 2 hours last trip - but that was because my incoming flight was delayed 2 hours. I had booked a 4 hour gap. The 2 hours was tight but not to-the-wire.
Thanks for the feedback. I was pretty sure we'd have to go back through security at JFK. Given the "what ifs" that could come into play, we ended up booking the flight that gets us to JFK 5.5 hours early vs 3.5 hours. I'm sure that 95% of the time, or more, it wouldn't be an issue going with the 3.5 hour cushion, but I'd rather read a book at the gate for a couple of hours than have to stress if there are any unexpected delays. Thanks again for the help.
American Air has a nonstop flight between CDG and Charlotte.
And American has a non-stop back from Rome, where we'll be leaving from at the end of the trip. If the cost was similar we'd definitely go with the non-stop from Charlotte and back. But we ended up saving about $1700 by flying to JFK and back. That may not seem like much to everyone, but it's a big savings for us. So, we'll play it safe with the longer layover, longer travel time, and save the money.
You will likely have to go through security again at JFK since it is separate terminals. Had to do the same thing returning from Paris on Air France (terminal one) and switching to a connecting Delta flight (Terminal 4) even though it was a single-ticket code-share flight. 3 hours was barely enough for us (but since we returning to the USA we also had the added time of passport control in Terminal 1 which you will not have).
Hi Casper,
I also live in Charlotte and know exactly what you mean -- it's just exorbitant to fly to Europe on American from CLT. Last summer for the first time I bought 2 separate tickets: RT CLT to JFK for $170 and open jaw on British Air JFK-LHR and Orly-JFK for $520 -- spent less than half what it would have cost me for one tix out of Charlotte. I allowed about 5 hours on each end to catch other flight and had no trouble. I'm doing the same thing in late May. Of course there's an element of risk but I'd not be able to travel as often if I had to pay additional $700-900 per trip.
Hope you have a great trip!
