United transfering through LAX

[Jack B]

Hi all,

For those with experience - how long would you say is a safe time between flights when transferring with United through LAX?

When I enter SYD-JFK flights into Webjet, one option (Which is by far the cheapest) involves getting off UA840 at LAX at 10:15am, and onto UA416 at 11:25 am.

Is this too short a time? If, say, UA840 was late and I missed 416, would United put me onto another flight?

[SteveW]

I believe they should still do that Jack. I flew in 2007 and was concerned at my connections, as I booked flights with United, I called them and they told me if I missed a connecting flight, they would put me on another.

Immigration took 1.5 hours or so to clear and my wife and I did miss our connections, they just put us on the next flight.

[Jack B]

That will be excellent if they do that - I'll call United to verify

I've found similar priced flights with Delta - are both pretty much the same transfer wise at LAX, or is it worth paying the extra little bit for DL?

[David Ramsay]

I would allow three hours through LAX .... but I have been in and out in 45 minutes!! You can never guess how long the queues will be at immigration or at security.

There are published minimum connection times. For LAX, international to domestic is two hours. If you book with less than that between flights, then the airline has no obligation to you if the incoming flight is late.

[Andrew M]

You will not make that flight with 1hour and 10mins if you are flying in Economy!

Even in business/first you would be pushing it!

What rough dates are you looking at, United is really the worst airline to fly between here and the USA

[Jack B]

Late august flights - hunting even more, I found a well priced Delta flight that has a 2 hour 50 minute connection time. I think I'll go with them.

[Justin L]

Jack,

I have done the Delta connection at LAX in the past for a SYD-LAX-LAS leg and 2h50min should be ample time to transfer. The Delta terminal has their own customs facilities as well and the time I used it I found it to be quite fast, but I may have been lucky on the day.