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Report: How long it took me to change planes at CDG on a Monday morning in April

Flew SEA to CDG on Delta. Business class seat so first off the plane.

Landed at gate M27 in Terminal 2 E.

Flight to Lisbon left from Terminal 2 F as well - from gate F 48.

This transfer looks short on paper, but it took us one hour and five minutes, going as fast as we could.

First you walk quite awhile, then you reach the “fork in the road” for connections (correspondences) vs. exiting the airport. Then you are directed to a train and you ride 3 stops. You exit into lots of options and keep walking towards 2F. Then there is a security check - all liquids and electronics out and show your passport and boarding pass. Long lines to approach here - waited at least 20 minutes. Then you go right up to Passport control (no line). Another 5 minutes of walking brings you to the F area.

Lots of panicked people with 1 hour connections, begging to be let to the front of the security check line and running through the airport.

But, as always, I think this massive airport has great signage and easy-to-follow directions. I never go under 3 hours on a connection here though, and I can relax and post on RS’ site with my extra time:)

Posted by
9460 posts

Now there is a real-world, timely report ! Thank you for putting that together .

Posted by
96 posts

This is extremely helpful--thank you so much! I hate to rush too and try for longer connection times.

Posted by
6228 posts

Thanks, Valerie. I'll be facing that in about 2 weeks. Luckily I have a 7+ hour layover at CDG, so have plenty of time to get from 2E to 2F. I wish the layover was shorter but I'd rather have it be too long than not long enough.

Posted by
3777 posts

I’m nervous for my return from Sicily in early May on Lufthansa. In Munich I have less than an hour. I called the airline but they told me I would be fine with the transfer. I will be alone so I have to keep my eyes open. Has anyone travelled through Munich on the way to JFK?

Posted by
8 posts

Thanks Valerie for that real-world detailed report. Most helpful!!!

Posted by
1217 posts

Thanks for the report. Just re-checked our connecting flight to Prague in Munich and how long we have in between. Almost 3 hours.

Posted by
6265 posts

Thank you, Vaerie. British Airways has given us a ridiculously short transfer time (20 minutes!) at Heathrow this summer. I can't believe their software allowed it.

That's another item on my "to do" list before we leave... The list keeps getting longer.

Posted by
454 posts

In early May, after our RS tour of Portugal, we are scheduled to arrive at CDG from Porto at 12:30, and we were supposed to have a 3 hour layover before departing on the 3:30 daily non-stop to O'Hare.

I just did a routine check of our itinerary and that 3:30 flight has had a schedule change and now leaves at 1:35.

Is there any way we are going to make our flight with just 1 hour and 5 minutes of layover time? Should I call Delta to re-schedule?

Posted by
6783 posts

Regarding that rescheduled flight to Chicago, a 65 minute layover is not impossible to achieve (see the OP's success in the other direction) but I would still try to call and reschedule. It might be tricky, though, because I do not think there is an earlier flight from Porto to CDG on Delta's partner Air France.
What happens if you only get to Chicago the next day?

Posted by
454 posts

Balso, thanks for your reply to my question about the 65 minute layover, and Valerie, thanks for your post which gives us hope we can do it! While it looks stressful, I think we're going to go for it. We're traveling with just carryon bags so we don't have to worry about our luggage not making it onto the new flight. And if it doesn't work out and we have to stay overnight and fly home the next day, we'll have everything we need.

It looks like you are correct, Balso, there are no earlier Air France flights out of Porto. We could ask Delta to switch us to a KLM flight that leaves Porto at 5 a.m. and has a 4 hour layover in Amsterdam before a non-stop to Chicago. But I am not in favor of a 5 a.m. flight if we can avoid it.

If we miss our connection, it looks like there is a 3:50 flight out of CDG that would get us home after a reasonable layover at ATL. Maybe there will be seats on that for us. Or, we could stay overnight in Paris and fly home on Sat. 5/7. Balso, if you see this and you can suggest a hotel that would have last minute availability at a reasonable rate, I'd be happy to hear your suggestion! We'd want to go into the city and stay overnight there instead of just getting a room at an airport area hotel.

Posted by
9460 posts

I think when you end up looking for last-minute availability at a reasonable rate on a Saturday night, you are just going to have to see what is available at the time if it ends up coming to that.

Posted by
414 posts

This is a pretty good description of our transit thru cdg last week lax-Toulouse. We had 2 hour connection and made in just over 1 hr. I was nervous but it worked out. Terminal 2f was incredibly crowded. Brad

Posted by
25 posts

Thank you so much for this!

I'm doing JFK to CDG to VCE soon and I'm nervous about it. I appreciate the details!

Also wow, Seattle to Paris sounds like a long flight!

Posted by
13808 posts

Also wow, Seattle to Paris sounds like a long flight!

Yes, showing 10h25m today. Maybe I’ll have some help from the jet stream today and have a shorter flight time.

Posted by
454 posts

Since I said "I think we're going to go for it," in a prior post on this chain (referring to our 65 minute layover at CDG), I thought I'd post an update. I called Delta yesterday to verify that if we accept the changed itinerary we were just notified about, and we end up missing the connection, they'll put us on the next available flight at no extra cost. I was told "no, it is the customer's responsibility to make their connection," and we would indeed pay for the new ticket if we miss the connection. Based on that I had them move us to a later flight out of CDG, one that gives us a 3.5 hour layover there. That flight is not getting us all the way to O'Hare but has a plane change in Detroit. We don't live in Chicago but always use that airport for international flights, instead of our home airport of Milwaukee. We usually take the bus to get to/from O'Hare. The new flight CDG-DTW-ORD flight that I picked yesterday was not going to get to Chicago in time for the last bus to Milwaukee. I asked the Delta agent if they'd be willing to put us on a flight to Milwaukee once we're in Detroit, and she ok'd that as an even exchange for the ticket we already paid for. I'm happy with the re-do!