How to Select and Take a Connecting Flight

Taking a connecting flight can save you a substantial amount of money over a non-stop flight. When you book a connecting flight, you will fly to an intermediate city, depart the plane and wait in the terminal until your next plane is ready to board. While taking a connecting flight can be a little confusing the first time you try it, you'll quickly become more comfortable navigating new airports.

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Boarding passes

1. Check out the cities that you would connect through on each airline you are considering. If you don't want to spend too much time traveling, only consider flights with layovers that are on a direct path to your destination. If you depart from Pittsburgh and your final destination is Miami, a layover in Atlanta would make more sense than a layover in Chicago.

2. Look at the connection time between the two flights before you book. If you have a layover in a small airport that isn't too busy, a 45-minute layover can be adequate. In a larger airport, 45 minutes can be cutting it very close. In some large airports, you may have to travel to a distant terminal in order to catch your next flight, which can be time consuming. For peace of mind, try to choose layovers of at least 1 hour.

3. Book your flight, but keeping checking the airline's website to make sure that your flight times have not changed. While airlines will email you about flight changes, they often do not do this until it is very close to the date of your flight. If one of your flights is changed to an inconvenient time, you will have more options available for rescheduling if you notice the change soon after it is made.

4. Print out your boarding passes before arriving at the airport. When you print out your passes, you will be given boarding passes for each leg of your flight.

5. Check that the connecting flight is still on time when you arrive in the connecting city and find out from what gate the next flight will depart.

Tips & Warnings

• Make a quick bathroom and food stop and head to your gate. Try to get to the gate at least 30 minutes before the flight is scheduled to depart, as boarding will usually start then.
• Be sure to keep all valuables and medications in your carry on bag. When you take a connecting flight, you increase the chance that one or more pieces of your luggage may not arrive when you do.