American Airlines - Manchester to Tampa via Philly

[SteveC]

Our family of 18 - us, our grown up kids and our grandkids - are all off to Orlando next August. As much as we’d like to fly direct, the £1220 return fare is very high so I’m thinking we fly indirect to Tampa for £700 each based on current prices and book a bus to take us to our villa and organise hire cars pick up locally for the day after.

Two questions, does anyone have any experience of this route and whether the outgoing 2 hr 1 min and homebound 1 hr 5 mins connection times at Philadelphia are ok and whether prices are likely to come down much if at all if we wait a while longer before booking.

[baboons]

I always get inbound and outbound confused depending on where I am. Is the 2 hr stopover on your way to Tampa? If it's that way round, the times are right but should be okay as long as you are on time.

I always like a little longer coming home to allow for storm delays in Florida in August. Philly is a good place to kill a couple of hours with a beer and a cheesesteak sandwich ;-)

[SteveC]

Originally Posted by baboons

I always get inbound and outbound confused depending on where I am. Is the 2 hr stopover on your way to Tampa? If it's that way round, the times are right but should be okay as long as you are on time.

I always like a little longer coming home to allow for storm delays in Florida in August. Philly is a good place to kill a couple of hours with a beer and a cheesesteak sandwich ;-)

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You are right baboons, I didn’t make it clear that the 2 hr is on the way to Tampa and the 1 hour is on the way home so I’ve re-worded thanks.

[Bal]

We did it with 1.50 out and 1 hour back.

Our flight got in 25 mins late from Manchester and still made it, abliet only just.

You’ll have enough times providing no significant delays. If there is a delay out, there is another flight to Tampa that gets you in about 9pm I believe. No options for Manchester on the way back, you’d be overnight in PHL.

[Paddcomp]

The transfer times are fine, we've done Philly with 2hrs and it works fine. Best if you have a plan, get off the plane ASAP, sit near tge front, don't dither or toilet before immigration and walk briskly.

Why Tampa, is that where you want to fly to? There are several connections to MCO.

[Guest]

We flew Manchester/Philly/Orlando in October our flight was delayed from Manchester so missed our connection.We were delayed 5 hours at Philly.It took a good while going through security again and getting our bags as well

[tspill]

On the way out, I would want much more than 2 hours. Yes, if everything runs fine, (in particular your transatlantic is not delayed) 2 hours will be fine.

We look for 4 hours on the way out. Dont really care on the way back as delays only affect going back to work

If you miss your connection, who knows how long it will take to get you all sorted. We have done the PHL and CLT to MCO and TPA dozens of times over the years and it has always been full so getting new connections might not be the same day or even the next (we had friends delayed 2 days).

It really depends on how muck risk you want to take. We are low risk takers when it comes to holidays, others may be happy to take a higher risk and have a shorter connection like this.