I know we have a number of Seattle residents on CC.
I’m looking to book some air tickets for my D to Europe in June. My options are for her to connect in Seattle with 1 hr 29 minute connection. Other option is to connect through LAX with 2 hours. I know for LAX that might be tight since I don’t think the International terminal connects to the domestic without having to exit and go through security again.
How is connecting to international in Seattle?
Here are the terminal maps:
https://www.portseattle.org/Sea-Tac/Maps-and-Directions/Pages/Terminal-Overview.aspx
https://www.portseattle.org/Sea-Tac/Maps-and-Directions/Pages/Security-Checkpoints.aspx
However, some things to think about when connecting:
- Domestic to international: if the domestic portion is on a small regional plane, it may be more likely to be delayed when the airport's capacity is reduced due to weather or some such.
- International to domestic: connection time must consider immigration and customs that are typically done at first entry (unless arriving from some place where pre-clearance is done, like many airports in Canada).
Would be Delta Connection to KLM. Actually it’s Delta not KLM.
I will take 1.5 hr in Seattle over 2 hr in LA any time! She does not have to exit the secure zone, and bad weather is not an issue in June, so more than likely she will be fine. 
Delta code shares with KLM, so it’s probably a KLM flight. If it is on one ticket, she should be able to check in for the trans Atlantic flight at the start of the journey.
Alaska is stopping code shares with Delta in 2017.
SeaTac is an easy airport to get around. You never have to go outside.
The only weather issues should be from where she’s starting; Seattle is great in June.
Agreed! Seems like a reasonable amount of time for Seatac.
1.5 hrs is plenty of time for connecting to a outbound int’l flight. But it’s the bare minimum for connecting to a domestic flight from an incoming int’l flight, if you don’t have Global Entry.
Sea-Tac is a really easy airport to navigate, very compact, very easy to get from one gate to another. As others have posted, there is basically only one pass through security that leads to all gates. I agree with others – Seattle is the better option.
I think I’d be more concerned with backup options since the connection times are comparable. For example, if she misses her connection, do they have other flights that day to her destination and how many? If it’s zero at one airport and three for the other, it’s a no brainer. I always assume it’s possible they miss the connection, and plan for what happens then.
Thank you for all the great work formation. @busdriver11 another good thing to consider. I’m watching the fares and they are still high so haven’t booked anything yet. There is another option of a 3 hour layover in Seattle but that route also has a 3 1/2 hr layover in Amsterdam. Her start destination is Sacramento so she should have no weather issues in June.
Question for you, mom60. What is her final destination? Is there any chance for a direct out of SFO?
Prices seem awfully crazy sometimes. You’re probably smart to wait until they come down (not sure when that is), but they seem to price them really high, far in advance.
I am the family travel planner. My kids fly fairly regularly, but me and my husband fly constantly, and we can’t miss our trips. I book flights options that have backups to the backups. Things tend to go pretty smoothly for us, because we always have the backup plans. Then again, we’re all flying tomorrow, so we’ll see how that works out!
Enough time for my favorite Schiphol “street side” diversion:
exit Immigration to get Leonidas chocolates & a raw herring-- lekker!
3 1/2 hr in Schiphol guarantees that she makes it to her next flight, and she might be even able to grab a snack! It is a huge airport.
Where in Europe is she flying? Have you looked at what Norwegian Air Shuttle has to offer to her destination?
Into Prague-out of Amsterdam
You know, I never book three leg flights. To anywhere. Too many possibilities for things to get messed up. It might be worth it if the price was significantly cheaper, if they person had a problem getting to an alternate airport, or they were going to stopover somewhere for a day and visit. Or if they had plenty of time and it was no big deal if they made it on time. Otherwise, I won’t even consider it, it’s like tempting fate, with everything needing to be reasonably on time, and it’s such a miserably long day.
If it’s not too inconvenient, you might check two leg trips out of SFO. Of course, kids can take misery on their bodies better than we can. For me, I’m just too old to suffer such very long days!
I have found that for international flights, prices tend to be best at around 2-3 months out. For a June flight, I’d watch fares now but probably plan on booking in early March.
But more important than the cost factor is simply that airlines may change schedules between now and June – the farther out you book the higher the likelihood of that happening.
That’s because you have the luxury of living in a city that is a hub for a mega int’l carrier. For the rest of us who live in aviation backwaters, it’s not an option.
True, however sometimes I travel to “aviation backwaters”, as you call it. Sometimes the three leg trips are significantly cheaper, or have much shorter layovers, but I still won’t do it. Even people who live in places with small airports might be close enough to drive to a larger airport. We recommend to our MIL, who lives near a tiny airport, to drive 2-4 hours to a larger one to avoid the three legs and commuter flight. It’s just too hard on her otherwise.
Each connection does increase the risk of something going wrong:
- Delay causing a missed connection, resulting in a much longer delay as you wait for the next available flight to your destination.
- If you have checked baggage, increased chance of the baggage being mishandled.
- If you are worried about the very small risk of scheduled commercial airline crashes, each takeoff and landing adds to the risk, since most crashes occur during takeoff or landing.
Each connection also adds considerable time spent in travel.
Obviously, if your origin or destination does not have a non-stop or fewer stop flight, that can be a problem.