Hey is this the pilot yeah oh great this is Ryan from row 12 can you call the
next flight I'm supposed to have and let them know I'm gonna be a little bit late
so I can make my connecting flight yeah sure it's not like I'm up here flying
this 300 million dollar tin can through the air at 500 miles an hour
you want me to FaceTime your hamster and let them know that you're missing him too
how did you know about mr. snuggles
seriously bro hey 74 crew what's going on if you don't know me my name is
Kelsey I'm a 747 pilot my channel 74 gear is all about aviation so whether
you're a pilot or an aviation enthusiast consider subscribing in this video I'm
going to cover some tips of what to do in the event that your flight is delayed
and you're making a connecting flight let's get into it
now first if you're going to be like Ryan where you're going to be super stressed
about your connecting flight and be bugging the flight attendants or wanting
to talk to the pilots about it don't take a connecting flight if at all
possible now if you can't book your flight nonstop and you have to make a
connecting flight give yourself time between flights there's a lot of times
when I've been standing up and saying goodbye to people as they were getting
off the plane especially when I was at the regionals flying
welcome to Miami welcome to Bakersfield that people would be saying oh I only have 20
minutes to make my flight and my thought is we got here on time how did you book
a flight with only 20 minutes to connect that doesn't make any sense
why you would do that why would you do that so give yourself enough time to
make that connecting flight I would say 90 minutes that gives you time do you
get off the plane get your bags maybe grab something to drink or go to
the bathroom or do something before you start boarding your next flight the
other thing to keep in mind is a lot of times when you check-in for your initial
flight on your boarding pass in a big time it will say this is your boarding
time for your next flight people will get confused and think boarding time is
the time that the plane is actually departing that's just when the boarding
process is gonna start so just keep those in mind when you're looking at
your boarding pass for the next flight there will be a departure time and a
boarding time be aware that your boarding time and your departure
are not the same thing so don't get those confused now it's your first
flight of you're connecting trip is late for whatever reason and you've allocated
yourself enough time like I said about 90 minutes I'm gonna give you some tips
that I use to make it as smooth and it's fast to make my connecting flight
obviously I travel for a living so I've been through just about every scenario
you can imagine on trying to connect and make flights work so I'm gonna give you
the things that I do to make it as smooth and fast as possible first while
I realize it's very stressful for you your flight crew members including your
flight attendants have zero ability to contact your next departing flight they
don't know who the crews are or have any way to reach them and they don't even
have any way to make them delay the flight they have zero say-so over that
don't bother your flight attendants about hey can you call or can you ask
they can do nothing about that and the same with your pilot it's like I showed
in this intro there's nothing that the pilots can do as well to radio ahead we
got enough things that we're dealing with besides trying to make your
connections work so that's not gonna happen
so what's happening behind the scenes that you don't see is the gate
agent who's the man or the woman that you talk to you when you get ready to
board the plane that person has a system in it showing all the seats on the plane
who's checked in who's connecting and what the status of their connecting
flight is if your connecting flight is very close and there's might be a tight
connection it will usually show yellow at least in the system that I saw if you
are not gonna make the flight or your flight has been cancelled the first
flight of your connecting flight has been cancelled it will show red so
they're able to see all of that so if you're on a flight and you're thinking
man this is gonna be a really tight connection your gate agent who is
working that flight out it's also going to know hey this is what gate they're
coming into and this is what time their plane is scheduled to land and they'll
have all the information usually it will relay that information to the pilots and
let them know okay we have three people and they're coming from Buffalo and it's
gonna be a very tight connection but they're parking at D 12
so they should be able to make it over here pretty quickly they'll relay that
information to the pilot so we know what's going on at that point its to the
pilots discretion to if they want to delay the flight a little bit to help
you get on that connection now keep in mind that if we delay a flight past
it's scheduled to depart 1 there are other people on that flight who have to
make connections as well and 2 we generally are gonna have to answer to
our bosses of why did we push the flight back late because on every late flight
it has a note of what causes delay so if we are the ones that say hey we want to
delay the flight for a couple minutes or for whatever reason we have to explain
to our bosses why we decided to do that so keep that in mind a lot of times we
won't push the flight back because there's another hundred or so people
that are on the flight that also need to go somewhere and they may have
connecting flights or appointments that they're supposed to me so we generally
won't do that but there arts in you waiting circumstances if there is a lot
of people on a plane let's say 30 or 40 people that are all coming off of one
flight in that situation we may decide to do it because that's a lot of people
so we want to help get the flight going the airline could send us a message and
say we're gonna delay the flight 15 minutes because this flight has 30
people on it and we want to make sure that they make their connection here's
what I do on any time I'm flying a commercial flight 1 I have the app of
the airline that I'm flying on on my phone that's gonna show me what gate
that we're parking it it's also gonna show me where my connecting flight is
leaving if you have the app and you have it all synced up with your flight you'll
be able to see where you're parking and where your next flight is going out of
that's gonna save you time from asking the flight attendant hey what gate are
we parking yet and I'm going to Tulsa Oklahoma after this what gate does that
leave it eliminates all that because your flight attendants aren't necessarily
going to know or want to answer that question for the other 170 people on the
flight and that saves you time when you get off the plane from looking at the
monitor or asking that gate agent that is standing there trying to board the
flight again what flight is to Tulsa flight going because they can't memorize
every gate so then they may have to look it up while you're on the flight usually
you can use the in-flight Wi-Fi have the app and look to see hey that flight 214
to Tulsa what gate is that going from ok D30 so now you know what gate you're
going out of and what get you're going into now usually if you're gonna be
doing a connecting flight it's going to be going through that Airlines hub
meaning one of the major airports at that airline is usually working in in
your in-flight magazine which is gonna be in the seat back in front of you you
can pull that out and usually in the back it's gonna have a map layout of a
lot of the different airports that that air
flies into you can use that map and start figuring out what concourse you're
going into or going out of and figure out what direction once you come out of
the gate you need to turn left or turn right and kind of get going on the route
that you need to get on to get to your gate now if you're going to a small
airport that's not in the magazine just keep in mind that it's probably not
going to be too big of a deal you're gonna walk out and look down one hallway
or the other hallway and figure out where your gate is but you're gonna want
to walk and quickly get there in some cases they'll close the boarding door 10
minutes prior to the plane actually departing and that's to give the pilots
and the crews time to close up the doors and pull the jet bridge back and get
ready to actually push and leave on time so the best thing you can do is quickly
get off the plane and briskly walk to where your gate is gonna be leaving
don't take time to go get a pretzel or go to the bathroom if it's gonna be a
really tight connection just get to that gate as quickly as you can if the doors
closed once you've arrived the gate and that probably means the gate agent is
down there pulling the jet bridge back so the plane can push and leave just
realize that the airline already knows that you miss your connection because
the flight will have been closed out and they will see that you didn't get on it
so they will already be in the process of working to get you on your next
available flight out now keep in mind that your first light that's late your
pilot's and your crew are gonna do everything they can to get you there as
quickly as possible however safety is our number one
priority when we're flying so as quickly and as safely as we can get you there we
will try to get you there we as the crew also don't want to be
staying and working late so you can imagine we don't want to be late or
leaving work late just like you probably don't want to leave work late either so
as quickly and as safely as we can we will get you to your destination so you
can make your connecting flight all right crew that's everything I have for
connecting flights and what to do if they're delayed in the comments section
below let me know what the longest you've ever been delayed on a flight is
I look forward to hearing from you until then keep the blue side up