Connecting flight in Chicago

[Ginners]

Hi all,

We're travelling to New Orleans in November for a week but on our way out we've got a connecting flight at Chicago O'hare Airport. We arrive at 18:30 and then have 2hr 20 transfer window to make our flight to NOLA.

I'm panicking that this won't be enough time to make our flight, has anyone had any experience at O'hare? I've hear things such as having to collect your bags, re-check them and go back through immigration etc so I'm a little worried!

Booked our package all through BA, just in case that makes a difference!

TIA

[folkie]

I'm afraid to say that connecting at O'Hare is notoriously slow. You do have to collect your bags, go through immigration, then drop your bags again - at least we did when we went to LA earlier this year. To be honest that's more common than not when connecting in the US - we've only taken one indirect flight when we didn't have to do it.

Immigration at O'Hare is a bit of a bear pit and can be very slow indeed depending on how many flights arrive at the same time. So get off the plane as quickly as possible and try to get ahead of as much of the crowd as you can.

Have a look on here flychicago/ohare/Ser...Pages/ATS.aspx to see whether you're affected by the closed ATS. It might be open again by the time you fly (it says it should be open for the winter season) but if not and you have to change terminals be aware that you might have a long walk within the terminal and the buses can have big queues and are slow as they have to leave the airport and travel through the city streets round the outside of the airport to get to the next terminal.

We also had 2hrs 20 between flights and only just made it to the gate on time (our second flight was then late anyway!) Our daughter was using crutches though which didn't help, so you should be able to get about more quickly.

[kiwiinabd]

We have been through Chicago in October for the last 2 years running on BA flights.

They had plenty of Self Service Immigration machines and we were on a hire car bus in less than 45 mins ! Admittedly we arrived mid afternoon so probably less busy !

There is a bag drop carousel after you clear customs and are walking towards the arrival area.

You will need to change terminal and as the transit train is closed you will need to get the bus between the terminals. However the bus are quite frequent and do not take that long. You cannot walk between the International Terminal and the other terminals. From the international terminal (terminal 5) the bus will go to terminal 1 then 2 and then 3

The bus stops are directly outside the doors form the arrivals terminal its usually quite busy as all the hire car & hotel buses stop in this area.

Also note that at the domestic terminals there are several different security screening checkpoints so if there are long lines at the one you first arrive at you might want to go to an alternative one.

Also if you look at Flightaware.com you can put in your flight details to New Orleans and it will give you details of which terminal / concourse and possible gates that you are likely to be looking for

Its definitely doable but if its busy you will need to move quickly and know where you are going

See link below for bus route details

flychicago/SiteColle...4%20x%2036.pdf