Changing terminals at Chicago O'Hare

jenn1984

Hi All,

I've booked a flight to Pittsburgh with Aer Lingus changing flights in Chicago- arriving in terminal 5 and then the Chicago-Pittsburgh flight is from terminal 2. My luggage will checked straight through but i'll probably have to go through customs. The stopover is 2 hrs 15 mins. Think this will be enough time?

Thanks,
Jennifer

rockonollie

Should be plenty of time.....if you clear immigration in Dublin, then you'll have nothing to worry about
You will have to pass security again when you enter terminal 2, because they don't have secure transfers like JFK.

king_of_inismac

I went through O Hare before Christmas. There's a train between terminals and leaves every minute or so. Very quick.

You'll have gone through immigration but you'll have to be checked by TSA which will take some time, but nothing to worry about! :-)

Bon voyage!

ProudDUB

You'll be fine. Your having cleared Immigration in Dublin will get you thru the Arrivals process pretty quickly. The train that takes you from the International Terminal (T5) to the domestic terminals is very frequent and very speedy. You won't meet many delays there. However, when you get to your domestic terminal, you will have to go thru Security again. Sometimes the queues can be long. Sometimes, they can be short. There is no way of knowing how long they may be really, so don't dilly dally on your way there.

O'Hare is a HUGE airport, so once thru Security, head straight to your gate, as there can often be a fair amount of walking involved to actually get to the gate. They can also chop and change the gates that flights leave from quite often. So keep an eye on the Departures screens to make sure that the gate that you think that you are departing from, is actually the gate that you are departing from.

Also remember, you don't have all of that 2 1/2 hrs to call your own. A big part of it will be sitting on your inbound flight, waiting to get off the plane & sitting on the second flight waiting to take off, so don't waste any time getting from Flight A to Fligth B, shopping, eating, boozing etc etc.

biddywiddy

What time does your flight leave Dublin, OP?

If your flight is late afternoon then you may not be able to clear immigration in Dublin. This happened to me travelling to JFK late last year. My flight was at about 17:00, I think, and all the immigration staff had left Dublin on the last Boston flight of the day. I had a connection to make in JFK and the airline staff made sure that I went through immigration quickly. So it was fine, and I'd say if this happened to you the airline would ensure you get through quickly to make your connecting flight.

rockonollie

ProudDUB wrote: »

Also remember, you don't have all of that 2 1/2 hrs to call your own. A big part of it will be sitting on your inbound flight, waiting to get off the plane & sitting on the second flight waiting to take off, so don't waste any time getting from Flight A to Fligth B, shopping, eating, boozing etc etc.

Part of it will be sitting on the tarmac on the inbound flight, but not on the outbound flight.....gates close 15 minutes prior to the scheduled departure time. You may spend time sitting on the tarmac waiting to depart, but that isn't part of your scheduled layover.

jenn1984

biddywiddy wrote: »

What time does your flight leave Dublin, OP?

If your flight is late afternoon then you may not be able to clear immigration in Dublin. This happened to me travelling to JFK late last year. My flight was at about 17:00, I think, and all the immigration staff had left Dublin on the last Boston flight of the day. I had a connection to make in JFK and the airline staff made sure that I went through immigration quickly. So it was fine, and I'd say if this happened to you the airline would ensure you get through quickly to make your connecting flight.

Flight leaves Dublin at 11.25am on a Saturday so should be fine hopefully!

ProudDUB

rockonollie wrote: »

Part of it will be sitting on the tarmac on the inbound flight, but not on the outbound flight.....gates close 15 minutes prior to the scheduled departure time. You may spend time sitting on the tarmac waiting to depart, but that isn't part of your scheduled layover.

I know. What I meant was that due to the gate closing for boarding 20 mins before the flights scheduled departure time, they can't use all of that 2 1/2 hours as transfer time, as 20 mins of it is spoken for, waiting for the plane to push back, and then take off. Departure time is listed as the time that the plane pushes back from the gate, not when it actually takes off, right?

southsiderosie

OP, there are so many delays at O'Hare, chances are your connecting flight won't leave on time anyway! You will be fine time-wise.

M5

+1 you will have more than enough time