Airline connections

For Heathrow that is incredibly tight. Where are you coming from? If international, once you land at Heathrow, you have to train over to another terminal and go back through security before going to the gate for your new flight. If your original flight is even one bit late, you can forget making that connection. You will be stressed the entire time. We have done it before, connecting through to Rome, and we were literally the last on the plane - something we don't want to repeat again. It's been a while since we were at Schiphol so can't comment there.

It would be coming from PDX, heading for Venice. I've never flown through Amsterdam, but Iceland managed to get us all through in 45 min, so I was wondering if they have some sort of insanely efficient setup. I will keep hunting. Thanks!

Once, we had 75 minutes at Heathrow between a flight from Dublin to the US. It was tight and scripted. We ran from our Dublin flight to the bus to the next terminal. No bathroom stops or dawdling. We made it but mostly because the other flight was late taking off. Since the proceeding flight was short, there wasn't as much that could go wrong. My opinion is that I'd rather wait a couple hours than induce that kind of stress into my life.

I agree, I keep seeing really weirdly short layovers, like 40 min in Munich, 50 min Zurich - none of those seem reasonable. I think I am going to keep an eye out for something closer to 2+ hours to give us less stress.

I can’t comment on Heathrow. We fly frequently from SeaTac to Schiphol. Pre COVID it was about a 3 hour layover. It’s our favorite connection. Well organized.

We missed a connection in Amsterdam that was that tight. Just didn't have enough time. Unfortunately we didn't pay attention to our seat location. We were in the far back corner of economy and close to the last people off the plane. Had we been sitting closer to the exit we would have been OK. Immigration had a short connection line that worked and we had a decent walk to our connection. We had to go through immigration and security. We just missed it by about two minutes. KLM took care of us and put us on the next convenient flight but still got to our last stop about four hours later than than. It was OK but will not make that mistake again.

I think both connections are too short, hope you can find something better. I agree with the last poster about third party sites. Good for identifying options, but then go directly to the airline(s). I've never seen a third-party fare that was better than what the airline itself was offering at the same time.

Are these flights actually flying? I'd check Flight Aware to make sure they are real flights. For our Sept, 2021 trip, we were sold flights that hadn't flown in 18 months, and then obviously there were canceled. Learned a lot after that trip.

In Heathrow, if you come into Terminal 5 and are leaving from Terminal 5, you have a chance.

Good luck!

I have experienced both those airports and that time is not ideal for either. Amsterdam was an absolute disaster to go through, lines were ridiculous but they did have a plan that if your boarding time was soon you could cut the line but again it was very stressful. There was a lot of walking and moving terminals at Heathrow we had a 3 hour layover and it was fine but I could not imagine an hour.

I too hate the stress of a short connection. I can tell you that I have successfully navigated AMS on multiple occasions with a 50 minute connection. Being all under one roof, AMS is a bit more manageable that say CDG or LHR. You will need to do a couple of things. First, make sure you can get off of the plane as quickly as possible. Tell the airplane staff about your short connection and they will help you disembark if they can. Next, make sure you're wearing comfortable shoes that allow you to walk quickly. Then, when you get to Passport Control be sure and alert the staff on duty of your next flights scheduled departure. When I went through AMS under these circumstances there were staff members moving people to the front of the line depending on their next flight's schedule. Finally, you might want to consider a ticket with a dedicated luggage compartment since, as one of the last people to board, there may not be anywhere to put your things overhead. Good luck and happy travels.