1 Hour Layover at CDG - Am I Crazy

If you miss the connection (which is very likely), when is the next flight? Will you have a carry-on or are you planning to check bags? I'd be leery of such a tight connection in one of Europe's most crowded airports unless I was sure I wouldn't mind waiting for a later flight and, more importantly, that my bags would arrive with me. I guess you have to ask yourself whether the $300 is worth it...it's not chump change but be sure you're honest about the true costs (not just monetary). Most RS Tours (and probably others as well) recommend that you arrive early just to acclimate yourself (or catch up on sites you won't see during the tour) and so you don't have to hit the ground running on Day 1.

I'd advise against taking the chance. Other ways to save $300. And, if you were to miss your flight and then all the subsequent connections were full, would you be a happy person?

It's your vacation, why start with stress/worry.

Thanks for the feedback, my gut tell me not to and just pay the extra 300. I did do some quick checking and we fly in and out of the same terminal (Delta and Air France) but there are only two flights to Sofia, Bulgaria and we would be connecting to the last flight so if we miss we would need to leave the next day.

patty,

I agree with the others, one hour is a very tight time for a flight connection especially at CDG. If your flight is a few minutes late, if there's a huge queue at Passport control or if you happen to be at the end of that queue, those are all factors that will add to your delay.

A few questions though - are flights that you're considering all on a single ticket (ie: code share flights)? If that's the case, it's normally the responsibility of the airline to get you to destination (although you still may not arrive on Saturday). Also, are you going to be travelling with carry-on only, or checking luggage?

Yes.
.........

If the listed arrival time is, say, 1pm and the listed departure time of the connection is therefore 2:05pm,
consider that it will take you at least until 1:10pm and more likely closer to 1:20pm to actually get out of the airplane and into the gate area, and the departing flight probably has a rule saying everyone must be on board by 1:50pm at the latest.

So in a perfect world it's not a 1hr5min connection but a 30 minute connection, and we don't live in a perfect world.

Last year I arrived at Heathrow on a slightly delayed flight 20 minutes or a little more before my connection's departure time, and there were already agents standing on the jetway with re-scheduled tickets to hand out to me and a handful of other people in the same situation. The agents weren't even going to allow us to run for it if we had wanted to.

I would never book a connection that tight there.

"we fly in and out of the same terminal..."

If the terminals named were 2E and 2F, for instance, then those are further apart than they sound. Terminal 2 is huge.

I'd never, ever, cut the timing that close. Excellent chance you're not making the next flight. If was your only stop over its a gamble. But it's a "middle" stop of three flights. Say the original flight is delayed, even a few minutes. Then the second flight is already behind and maybe they have a slight delay. Then you get to CDG much later than expected, maybe an hour later. Could easily happen, especially with so many flights.

My thought is the same as Kaekelu - if you miss the flight, worst case is that you have to pay for a night in Paris. Even last minute, will it cost you $300 for one of the hotels at the airport? Even with better layover times, you may get delayed and miss the SOF flight.

My only concern would be checked luggage. On such a tight connection, chances of it arriving with you are kind of low.

We had a 1.5 hour layover in CDG en route from Los Angeles to Venice. We almost missed our connecting flight because the line at Passport Control was really long. There was a person at the front of the line directing passengers to the next open window and After standing in line for a while, I got up the nerve to tell her we had a connecting flight leaving shortly. She looked at our boarding passes and immediately motioned for us to go to the front of the line. We then had to run to our gate to make the flight but the flight attendants were waiting for us and the minute we got onboard, the door closed and the plane was ready to push back from the gate. We will be flying the exact same route and flights in August and when I booked the flights, I asked the Air France rep if this was an approved lay-over and she said "yes". So, I will definitely ask to go to the front of the line again in Passport Control of the line is really long. For anyone with a tight connection, keep this in mind. Lucky for us, there are several flights per day from CDG to Venice so if I missed one, it would not have been too big of a deal.

Adding to what Sheron said - same thing happened to us in Nice but it was more of our own doing (we weren't connecting, and we actually showed up 2 hrs ahead, so we had plenty of time). We should have gone to terminal B (flying to London) but we misunderstood and hung around term A until the gate was shown. Then go to get to term b with about 20 min til the flight and the lineup was hundreds of people long! We almost died and thought we were going to miss the plane. Eventually, someone helped us (and a few other stupid people like us who made the same mistake) and moved us up to the front of the line. And we weren't even the last people on the plane. The pilot said they held the plane for a few minutes because of the huge back up at the passport check because of a worker shortage.

That being said, I wouldn't chance it. But if you do and find a long line, try and find someone to help you get thru faster - the worst that can happen is they say....sorry, nope.

Don't do it! Immigration/passport control lines can be VERY long and often you have to collect your luggage, go through customs, and then recheck it on the other side. You absolutely won't have enough time.
I made this mistake once and missed my next flight...it wasted hours and hours of my travel time and it took my luggage 3 days to find me.
Bleh.
Just pay the extra $300.

Sofia is in Bulgaria and Bulgaria is not a Schengen country so does Patty have to go through immigration to change planes? I don't have to when I fly through CDG between Israel and the U.S.

Check the CDG website to determine what gates your arriving flight is as well as departing flight. Normally, I would not be satisfied with such a short transfer time. The only thing is you main flight is the transatlantic and you will be in Europe. As others have said, check to see if your airline has more flights that day to SOF.

When is your flights? One thing, if the airline changes flight times, which they do frequently, then you get a free change and could book a later SOF flight.

Double check me, but I believe that the comment re: if the airline changes your flight schedule you get a free change is only if the time frame is changed by something like 2.5 or 3 hours or more....not just for any change.

Maybe someone else can weigh in on this.

CDG is a very sparse airport, with 9 terminals, some close, some not so close. I remember a flight Rome - Paris - Santiago; we had something like 1 h 10 minutes layover (booked by Air France for a group of 110 persons!), we had to change between two close terminals (subsections of terminal 2) and it took 50 rushed minutes. I would not dare to think how long a time would be needed for transfers from terminal 2 to 1. Even terminal 2G is quite remote.