CPH customs coming from US, gate changes - timing questions?

[heckofagator]

hi group,

 

We are coming to Copenhagen later this summer. Will be flying in from the US. The flight is scheduled to arrive at 7:15am and we are now shopping for a flight to Prague which leaves at 9:15, just 2 hours later. The next flight to Prague is way later in the afternoon. We'd really like to get that 9:15am flight if at all possible.

 

So my first question is a tough one that probably nobody can accurately answer for certain, but assuming the flight from the US is on time and lands at 7:15, would we have any chance to make another flight 2 hours later? Since these are different tickets, I assume we have to retrieve our luggage and then check in for the next flight. Do we have to go thru customs here? How is that in Copenhagen?

 

And I guess this leads me to my next question - if there's no way possible to make the 9:15am flight, what can we do for 7-8 hours to wait for the next flight? Is there a place to store luggage at the airport? Any place you'd recommend to visit that's easy to get to from the airport? Keep in mind that 3 days later we'll be back in Copenhagen for a couple days before we board a cruise ship.

 

thanks in advance!

[Danish viking]

All intercontinental flights arrive at pier C and from the information I have then Czech Airlines departs from pier A.

 

But yes you both have to get through Immigration at pier C, collect your luggage and then check in again.

 

2 hours leaves no time for errors or delays, also remember that the gate closes around 20 minutes before so you have to be at the gate at 8:55.

 

I would not bet on it.

 

Have you checked if Norwegian or SAS has some earlier departures.

[Earl Rosebery]

Why Copenhagen on the way to Prague?

[hallasm]

hi group,

 

We are coming to Copenhagen later this summer. Will be flying in from the US. The flight is scheduled to arrive at 7:15am and we are now shopping for a flight to Prague which leaves at 9:15, just 2 hours later. The next flight to Prague is way later in the afternoon. We'd really like to get that 9:15am flight if at all possible.

 

So my first question is a tough one that probably nobody can accurately answer for certain, but assuming the flight from the US is on time and lands at 7:15, would we have any chance to make another flight 2 hours later? Since these are different tickets, I assume we have to retrieve our luggage and then check in for the next flight. Do we have to go thru customs here? !

 

 

Why buy Prague as a separate ticket. However understand that the Copenhagen to Prague trip is a different tour and going back to Copenhagen for the cruise.

If two different tickets a stop over of two hours is very risky. Just a bit of delay of you Atlantic crossing and you have lost your Prague flight.

You need to go through immigration and then pick up your luggage. Customs is not really a problem, but you need to check in in different terminal (walking distance) for the Prague flight and then through security.

To avoid too much stress I'll recommend to book the flight at the same ticket as your Transatlantic- might be more expensive then individual shopping but less stressful. My advise would be to contact a travel agent.

 

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Forums

[heckofagator]

Danish Viking, thanks for the specific info on the airport.

 

We initially wanted to buy a multi-destination ticket to go to Prague direct, and then fly home from Coopenhagen after the cruise, but for several reasons, mostly price and flight times, the multi-city flights just didn't make sense. We already have the Copenhagen round trip flights purchased a while back. Now we just need to find somewhere to go in the mean time.

 

Worst case, I suppose we could stay in Copenhagen for 5 nights total, but would really like to venture out a bit to another country. Will keep playing with the flights....but yeah, wish we had a little more than 2 hours between the flights. But I know exactly what will happen.....when we don't book the morning Prague flight, we will get off our initial flight, pick up the luggage and make it through immigrations all within 30 minutes with no hassle at all....and could have very easily make the flight.

 

Do people even still use Travel agents? I have never.

[hallasm]

Do people even still use Travel agents? I have never.

 

 

I normally don't use TA, however in situations like yours when mixing airline alliances I would in order to avoid any surprises and TA's sometimes can do miracles. Your transatlantic flight might also very well be an hour early (assuming SAS) but you cannot do the transfer in 30 minutes. Need to pick-up luggage and check-in at another terminal - then through security. Depending on week day it might take some time. However the combination of Copenhagen and Prague is a great idea.

Another advise would be to arrive back into Copenhagen the day before in case of strikes or cancellations. Not than many connections from PRG to CPH.

Sorry for being negative, but I do have a lot of travel experiences and have experienced strikes, bad weathers conditions, delayed luggage, and delayed flights. So far never lost a cruise or a connection flight but from time to time a day later at destination than originally planned.

 

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Forums

[Heartgrove]

We did an open-jaw last month through CPH on SAS from IAD (Wash,DC) to BGO (Bergen) before our cruise. SAS allowed us 50 minutes to transfer to a SAS regional jet. I was concerned if we would make it (if not, next flight with waiting at CPH) but we did with time to spare. But there were two days in the preceding two weeks where the CPH-IAD flight was cancelled so there wasn't an IAD-CPH flight for that day, and another where it was diverted enroute so was 3-1/2 hours late.

 

Maybe choose an alternate city to visit with more frequent flights?

[heckofagator]

yes, the SAS flight from IAD to CPH is exactly the one we are on. Thanks for providing some of that info - we were actually going to call SAS today to find out if they could provide an average arrival time in Copenhagen.

 

That's scary about the cancelled flights - last time we flew United (who has the first leg of our flight up to IAD) they stranded us in DC. It was quite awful. I guess at that point, even having a later afternoon flight to Prague isn't going to make a difference.

 

Yeah, we might consider some alternate destination. We were really looking forward to the Augustine hotel in Prague, though.

 

Any other suggestions for a city that has some good amount of flights from CPH?

[dd likes to cruise]

Can you stay and do Copenhagen first? Then do Prague a couple days later?

 

Also, most airlines have maps on their websites that show their routes. If you really want to find another city, check those.

[heckofagator]

Why not stay in Copehagen a night or so and see that city, and still go to Prague if you have enough days. Don't remember right now if you mentioned amount of days in the OP.

.

 

This might be an option, too. We are meeting up with family 2 nights before the cruise in Copenhagen and would rather spend it with them but it may be easier just to split up the Copenhagen stay with Prague in the middle. We were just trying to avoid unnecessary taxi fares and hotel check in/out and packing/unpacking, etc and were trying to have 3 nites in Prague and 2 in Copenhagen versus 1-3-1

[hallasm]

In case of a later flight http://airluggage.dk does offer luggage storage visiting Copenhagen. There is a 15 minutes train or metro service from Airport to city depending where in Copenhagen you want go.

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Forums

[Highpeaklad]

If the flight to Prague is with SAS then you should be able to check your bags in in the morning after you arrive from IAD then get the metro/train into Copenhagen for the day before returning for your flight to Prague.

[Danish viking]

The departure times fit the the Czech Airlines departure.

[hallasm]

If the flight to Prague is with SAS then you should be able to check your bags in in the morning after you arrive from IAD then get the metro/train into Copenhagen for the day before returning for your flight to Prague.

 

 

 

SAS does currently not offer direct flights to PRG

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Forums

[heckofagator]

yeah, SAS into Copenhagen and check Czech Air, Smartwings or Norwegian Air seem to have the best flights from Copenhagen to Prague

[Heartgrove]

yes, the SAS flight from IAD to CPH is exactly the one we are on. Thanks for providing some of that info - we were actually going to call SAS today to find out if they could provide an average arrival time in Copenhagen.

 

That's scary about the cancelled flights - last time we flew United (who has the first leg of our flight up to IAD) they stranded us in DC. It was quite awful. I guess at that point, even having a later afternoon flight to Prague isn't going to make a difference.

 

Yeah, we might consider some alternate destination. We were really looking forward to the Augustine hotel in Prague, though.

 

Any other suggestions for a city that has some good amount of flights from CPH?

 

The SK 926 (IAD-CPH) flight currently has an average of being 20-40 minutes late, depending on how many days you include. For example, today it will be one hour late just leaving the gate. The 07/04 flight was 1.25 hrs late arriving CPH and the 07/01 flight was 1.0 hr late arriving CPH. Others though in a seven day stretch were on-time or even early. Weather is a large determining factor.

 

We only had three days in Bergen before coming back to Copenhagen for three days before our cruise. If I had an additional day, instead of flying back I would have taken the train Bergen-Oslo and then the DFDS Oslo-Copenhagen ferry for some more sea time. :) We stayed at the Adina Apartments Hotel (really liked it) which is just down the street from the DFDS terminal, and the 27 Oceankaj bus stopped just outside the door to get to our ship.

 

It looks like SAS offers seven direct flights to Oslo and five to Bergen, for example.

[heckofagator]

hi group, just thought I'd update you and let you know how it worked out.

 

Well, the trip started off really badly. Our United flight from TPA to IAD was late - we sat on the runway forever waiting for fuel and all of the BS. We landed with 15 minutes before our SAS flight to CPH took off. Needless to say we were in the back of the plane and it took forever to get off and by the time we got even close to our gate in Dulles, our flight to Copenhagen was pulling away.

 

United was NO help at all. The best they could do is route us through Munich later that evening and we would have missed our flight from CPH to PRG, even though we ended up booking the flight in the evening. So yeah, I bet we would have made the early 9am flight to Prague if we had been able to get on the on-time SAS flight, but as luck would have it, United totally screwed us and we had to end up buying tickets on Luftansia into Prague.

 

This is the 2nd time United has totally screwed us - last time they stranded us in Washington DC and we had to pay for hotel and airfare home. thankfully, the last minute flight only cost us $600 online, so its not the end of the world, but I'm still amazed at how they can get away with stuff like this.

 

The silver lining is the Luftanisa girl at the gate (who United booked us with to get us over to Europe) totally felt sorry for us and got us in the lounge for the 4 hours we had to sit in the airport. Couldn't have been any nicer on her end.

 

But yeah, bottom line, we were worried about a 2 hour connection and whether we could make it - we ended up missing the flight we booked with a 9 hour connection.

[Danish viking]

Was it Lufthansa that you got to fly with instead?

[heckofagator]

Yes, United booked us on Lufthansa to cover the missed SAS flight. They were going to get it to Munich and then to Copenhagen, but like I said, we would have missed our flight to Prague at that point, so we just took the flight to Munich and then bought our own tickets on Lufthansa from Munich to Prague.

 

 

Really like their airline. It'll be one I look for when making future plans. We did fly SAS/United home yesterday without too much of a problem.

[Heartgrove]

Yes, United booked us on Lufthansa to cover the missed SAS flight. They were going to get it to Munich and then to Copenhagen, but like I said, we would have missed our flight to Prague at that point, so we just took the flight to Munich and then bought our own tickets on Lufthansa from Munich to Prague.

 

 

Really like their airline. It'll be one I look for when making future plans. We did fly SAS/United home yesterday without too much of a problem.

 

Glad to hear that it all eventually worked out. And sorry that we had the poor weather yesterday at IAD while you passed through. I hope you enjoyed your cruise!

[heckofagator]

Funny you should mention the bad weather at IAD. I think it had about cleared out by the time we landed around 3, but after getting pretty hosed by United Twice, I joked to my wife on the plane how fun it was going to be to sleep in Washington again on our own dime. :) and when we landed, the first alerted I got on my phone when I turned it on again after 2 weeks was a text msg from United that many flights were delayed or cancelled. My stomach about sank. But yeah, we got home fine.

[kaisatsu]

I'm confused. You said that United was no help, but it sounds like they got you on another flight that would have gotten you to Copenhagen the same day. Did I miss something? You bought tickets to CPH, and it sounds like they were able to get you to CPH. Did they make you pay to rebook the trans-Atlantic ticket?

[heckofagator]

You have the facts right, but getting us to CPH 9-10 hours late (and adding an additional leg) doesn't qualify as good in my book. If I had taken their free ticket, we would have then missed our Prague flight, which would have resulted in buying another ticket for the next day plus a hotel for that evening in addition to losing the hotel in Prague that was already paid for. The best option was just to get to Munich on their dime and then buying our own tickets to Prague so we could at least use the hotel that we had already paid for.

 

They did suggest maybe we'd want to consider renting a car and just driving from Munich to Prague. Idiots.....

 

they just couldn't say anything but "no" when trying to work with them. Can we get upgraded seats for all this trouble? No. Can we just go to Prague instead of CPH? No. Can we get access to the United Lounge since we now have to sit in the airport for the next 5 hours because of you? No. The agents at the counter also confirmed, concerning seat upgrades, that they will let better seats go unused before giving them to someone they've inconvenienced? Just utterly incredible disappointing.

Edited August 9, 2017 by heckofagator

[kaisatsu]

That's too bad that it didn't work out better. :(

 

I've always booked my whole trip on a single ticket, so they were willing to get me where I was going eventually. The times when the delay was enough to push the trip back more than a day, I've been lucky to be able to get standby space on a flight within 24 hours.

 

It's too bad they couldn't come up with a better option for you. I've been stuck in that situation with other airlines, and it was a nightmare (TAP once stranded me with two overnight waits on what should have been a 16-hour trip with one connection). Glad you got there eventually!

[heckofagator]

thanks - yeah, ideally, the trip on 1 ticket would have been better, but for several reasons, we made 2 separate purchases. Who knew that having a 9 hour layover and you still have a chance of missing a flight. Lesson learned.

 

Good thing is that we made it to Prague around the same time as we would have had everything gone as planned. Although we had to buy additional tickets and spend 10 hours in airports and not in Copenhagen exploring the city.

 

I'm super glad we found a good deal online for the Munich to Prague tickets for later that day. I've never purchased tickets quite THAT last minute. The Lufthansa girl got us a price of $500 each and when we showed her that we could get all 4 for the same $500, she winked and said she would go ahead and just buy them online asap.