JFK transfer experience?

[tink18]

We flew via JFK this year and swore never again. Our flight was delayed a further 2hours on top of our four, we were changed terminals and our gate 5 times, the staff were rude in several places and several of the people there told us delays are the norm there, personally if I do indirect again I will avoid New York, Atalanta though was lovely, just my experience

[TheRobsters]

Originally Posted by tink18

We flew via JFK this year and swore never again. Our flight was delayed a further 2hours on top of our four, we were changed terminals and our gate 5 times, the staff were rude in several places and several of the people there told us delays are the norm there, personally if I do indirect again I will avoid New York,
Atalanta though was lovely, just my experience

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I do think that this can happen on any indirect route... we flew via phl this year and had a cancelled flight on our return home. This meant we were more than 24 hrs late arriving home. Would that put me off? I don’t think so. That’s always a risk that you take when flying indirect.

[SteveC]

We were a bit panicky on our MAN-JFK-TPA flight in August as our 2 hours 40 minutes layover in JFK quickly evaporated due to the Virgin flight out of MAN being delayed an hour, 40 minutes for our family to clear security and an issue with our granddaughters wheelchair going missing. Once we got that sorted however it was a simple case of doing the Delta bag drop immediately outside the luggage pick up area, re-clearing security and a short bus ride to T2. All well signposted.

JFK is bad for flights being delayed as so many are queuing to take off and ours took off an hour after the scheduled departure time but still arrived in Tampa on time so they must schedule potential delays into the timings.

[Willeve]

We did Man-JFK-MCO this year, sailed through security in less than half an hour, had concerns initially but all unfounded. Obviously, it’s the luck of the draw with any transfer as to how busy it will be, but for us JFK was not the nightmare I’d anticipated.

[MinniMouse]

We've just done EDI JFK MCO. We had 5 hour between on way out and 1hr 55 mins on way back.

We were delayed by over an hour at Edinburgh. it then took us just over 2 hours getting through JFK, and that was us first off the plane. There must have been a couple of flights land just before us. The hall did thin out before another couple of flights came in behind us. Chaos. We were glad of the 5 hr as we weren't stressed. We had an hour and a half to sit before our flight to MCO.

Coming home was a different story. We had checked in at mco, through security, walking to the gate when I received an email from delta to say they didn't think we'd make our connection and to get in touch We had to queue for Delta assistance desk. We were told there was bad weather in New York and that was the reason for the delays in the flights. She offered to get us to jfk then a flight the following day but the weather forecast for next day wasn't good or put us on the Aer Lingus flight with a nearly 3 hour wait at dublin which we accepted. Got $345 back as we were downgraded from comfort plus to economy. Pretty basic flights back, especially the Stobart flight from dublin to edinburgh.

Between the dates of us booking the flights and our actual holiday the flight times changed several times so keep an eye on your booking.

[tink18]

in all fairness security was a breeze for us, off the plane and landside at the terminal in about 30 minutes

[Peko]

Originally Posted by SteveC

JFK is bad for flights being delayed as so many are queuing to take off and ours took off an hour after the scheduled departure time but still arrived in Tampa on time so they must schedule potential delays into the timings.

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Scheduled departure time is not meant to be the time you take off, it is the time the aircraft is scheduled to move from its gate/parking stand. Similarly, scheduled arrival time is the time it is scheduled to reach the arrival gate / parking stand, not when the aircraft lands.

And yes, taxiing time is factored into the scheduled flight duration for this reason.

[Bella Vita]

Our lay over last October was 1hour 40minutes which was tight! There were 13 of us running from security check to boarding gate... like a scene from home alone! Lol

Our hold up at security was kids juice bottles! We hadn’t appreciated we had to go through security again (no liquid) with it being a connection flight - beginners error!

[SteveC]

There were abandoned water bottles everywhere as we recleared security including a big bin full in the middle and a few of our party of 16 added to it. The officials made it clear that they were exasperated by the number of people who seemed to think that clearing security for an onward flight somehow meant the liquids rule didn’t apply.

[Hopefulholiday]

Glad I read this, we’ve just booked our first flight with a connection and i hadn’t realised that we would have to go through security again !
Ah well I know now !