I know I have seen the info here somewhere, but couldn't find it, so will ask again.
We are flying in from Phil Oct 2nd arrive at 9:15 am and want to schedule a flight to Santorini the same day, the travel agent at Fantasy travels wants to put us on a flight at 3:50, I found one at 11:50 do you think that's enough time to clear customs and make that flight?
Thanks,
Monica
9:15-3:50 is a long time to wait. It should be fine taking the 11:50 flight, as long as you arrive on time. Customs is practically non-existent but if you're flying direct to ATH from Philadelphia you will have to go through passport control. If you have to collect your bags and re-check them print out your ATH>JTR boarding passes 48 hours ahead of time and all you have to do is take your bags upstairs to the special drop-off point before entering the secure departures area.
Two hours is ample time ... ATH airport is just one big bulding int'l at one end, domestic at the other. The "Customs" thing is nothing ... it's a walk-through. What takes a bit of time is the passport clearance line, but that AA flight is the only one before 9:30, and it' will just take about 20 minutes... takes that long anyway for your luggage to reach the carousel. When you exit the luggage area, there is a sign "Customs: do you have anything to declare" and of course you dont... just walk thru. Then you hit the ATM machines for some Euros, and head over to the Aegean air check-in line. You just have to be in that line 1 hour (or 45 minutes) efore your scheduled depature. BTW, if you want a snack before your connection, get it before going thru the domestic security line ... there is not much in the domestic departure lounge.
I too think it is enough time. I was going to add that Aegean and Olympic air have kiosks where you can print out your luggage tag and then drop off luggage. There usually are people to help. It is helpful if line is long.
I personally like to go through security before worrying about lunch. I flew twice in May domestically and both times was able to find adequate food after security. There may have been more choices before security but I never looked.
Beth
Thanks so much for the wonderful info....
We did this exact timing in late April, plenty of time for customs and flight change. Note all our baggage was carry on although agean made my wife check hers at the gate.
Thanks, we plan to do carry on also, not sure about the others. I know the local airlines have tighter restrictions, so we may have to check on Agean...
Monica -- aegean has 2 levels of price one is called ?? Go Lite?? or some such, the other is called semi-flex -- the first is a few dollars/Euros less but Do Not be tempted; it only allows you to carry on a small personal item (i.e. a laptop), about ?? 14 lbs max ... and you hve to Pay big bux for a checked bag. The Semi-flex allows a large checked bag, and also, if something happens & y ou hve to change flights you can do so without penalty. No such luck with "Go Lite"
The travel agent may have been exercising an abundance of caution and not wanting to hear from an unhappy client about, " I arrived late and missed the next flight and had to buy another ticket" complaint.
As long as you arrive close to on time you should have time to make the connection
You may want to hedge your bet a bit and buy one way tickets to/from Santorini. In case you do miss the 1st flight you would need to buy only the ticket to the island and not the complete r/t journey
Thanks again, we are shooting for the checked bag flight at 11:50, we will keep our fingers crossed, don't want to spend 6 1/2 of our holiday at the airport..
Monica
