How big is the Cleveland airport? If i have 30 minutes to make a connection, is that doable? (this is kinda GG, kinda IMHO)
Yes. It’s a “big” airport but not, like, ATL big. You have to take a train to get around in ATL and I can do THAT in 30 mins.
You should have no problems, space/time-wise.
Here’s a terminal guide. It’s not too big an airport really.
http://www.clevelandairport.com/site/375/site/511/default.aspx
Cool, thanks guys. I was a little worried 'cause I was in ATL once and wound up literally sprinting over three terminals. Good thing I wore running shoes that day…
CLE is a mid-sized regional hub. You can comfortably walk from any terminal to another inside of 30 mins.
Cool, I’m going to Boston tomorrow!
You’ll be too late for the playoffs. They end tonight. 
Well, I just wanted to say this came in quite handy for me as well.
My 16 year old son has to make a connection next month in Cleveland. He’s a pretty seasoned traveler, so I’m not too terribly worried about him making his flight (and he’s got 2-3 hour layovers on the trip out here and the return to Pittsburgh), but I was a bit curious as to how large or confusing the airport might be.
Thanks!
Um, I’m guessing that’s baseball? This is the sports event I’ll be attending. 
Its not so large that you couldn’t make a connection in 30 minutes.
Assuming, of course, your flight is on time to Cleveland. You don’t have a heck of a lot of leeway there.
How’s that working out for you so far?
Cleveland-Hopkins International Airport is a friendly, pretty well-designed midsize airport, and even getting from one end of it to the other in half an hour should be no problem. Hope you enjoy your stay!
I’ve only been to 4 or 5 airports in the U.S. Most of my travel has had a layover in Detroit (Wayne County).
Is that considered a big airport? I know it’s bigger than New Orleans International and Buffalo and smaller than O’Hare and Denver Int’l.
I once landed at Detroit in the vicinity of gate A1 and my departing flight was in the A70s and made it on foot with enough time to stop at the food court for a couple of tacos.
One other time, I landed at the end of concourse C and had to get on a plane at one end of concourse A and almost didn’t make it.
I’ve always had about a 60 minute layover there.
Yeah, I hope samclem didn’t have any money on it. Hooboy, I was down at Fenway in a local little hole in the wall just off the park and it was nuts. Boston was amazingly lovely (no rain! sun! and temps in the 70’s! it’s chillier back here in Austin) and I had an awesome time.
BTW, y’all were right. The Cleveland airport is quite managable in a short period of time. Lacks sufficient water fountains, however, and the snack selection is poor. But nice and clean…
You should have given us some notice you were coming. I could have rallied the locals to roll out the red carpet for you. If nothing else, we’d have had someone to root for.
My new office is right on the Charles, a little downstream from the course, though.
new link
for airport map.
Short version: The folks up-thread are misleading you badly. You’re planning to fail.
Long version:
One of the big issues with older design airports is that often different concourses are not connected on the secure side.
So changing planes within a concourse, even a huge one, can be quick and easy whereas changing concourses introduces a 15 to 45 minute wild card delay to go through security. Last time I was there, Hopkins had been upgraded to solve this problem. But not too many years ago it had this problem.
Some airports are even worse where you can’t walk between concourses or terminals but have to take a shuttle bus that runs infrequently.
So the first critical question to ask the OP for almost any question like this is "what airlines are you arriving and departing on? Is either segment international, including Canada and Mexico? And if one leg is on an RJ and the other is mainline we need to know that too; often “Brand X” is all in one terminal and “Brand X Express” is all in one terminal. But they’re different terminals with poor connectivity.
With this info we can see if the transfer ought to be easy or has an extra 20 minutes to 2 hours of delay built into it. Without this info in most cases we’re just offering pious hope.
For the OP’s specific case at Hopkins this part is a non-issue; Hopkins has just one security zone. But we’re not home free yet.
Timing …
30 minutes from scheduled arrival to scheduled departure is an extremely tight connection even if the inbound flight is exactly on time.
From the moment we park the aircraft and *it *arrives until the last passenger on a full flight gets to the top of the jetway and sets foot in the terminal so *he/she *has arrived takes 12-14 minutes for an A320 / 737 / MD80 sized aircraft. On a bigger jet it’s even longer. RJs are quicker. If you’re sitting in first class it’s quicker. If not, it’s not.
At my airline now for every departure the gate agents close the door from the terminal into the jetway at departure time minus 10 minutes. I’ve recently ridden on most of the other brands and that’s pretty much industry standard behavior now.
Remember that departure time is the moment the *aircraft *should begin to back away from the gate. A lot of stuff still has to happen after the last passenger starts down the jetway before we can move. That’s what the 10 minutes is for. And it’s barely enough in most cases.
So when I see the OP talking about a 30 minute connection, I see a <10 minute connection: 12 minutes to get off the arrival aircraft, leaving just 8 minutes to run to the other gate to be there before 10 prior when the gate shuts.
You’d better be a fast runner, know exactly which gate you’re going to, have it be in the same security zone, and you’d better not get lost or need to pee. Or be dragging kids or elderly or infirm people with you.
You’d better also have your boarding pass for the second segment; any need to talk to the agent at the second gate will come out of your 8 minutes of running time.
But wait, there’s more :). At about 20 minutes prior to departure they start cancelling seats for the no-shows and giving those seats to standbys. If you are on a published connection, where you bought both segments of the ticket from the same airline at the same time, then they know where you are and your seat on the second flight is safe.
But if they wouldn’t sell that tight connection or particular flight combo so instead you made two separate reservations and two separate purchases, they’ll never connect the dots. You’ll be marked as no-show and your seat given away while you’re running. And no, that doesn’t count as a denied boarding situation.
FYI, there are now fairly few situations where HQ will choose to hold an outbound flight due to late inbound passengers on one of our own flights, even if we’ve known they’ll be late for the last 2 or 3 hours as they’re enroute. The current industry thinking is that it’s far better to launch the second flight on time to avoid triggering a snowball. Remembering that on what you think of as your second segment where a late departure doesn’t hurt you, for many other people that’s their first segment with another connection ahead of them.
Now as to our industry’s less-than-sterling punctuality …
Roughly 15-20 percent of the industry’s flights are more than 15 minutes late. Another 5-10% are more than 5 minutes late. You only have 8 minutes available to run if everything is perfect. If it takes you 6 minutes to cover the distance, you actually have TWO Whole Minutes of slack. Do ya’ feel lucky? Well do ya?
That looks like planning an all-but-guaranteed fail to me. If it’s a particularly busy day (e.g. holiday or major convention) or is the last flight to the destination that evening, you can upgrade your plan from “fail” to “epic fail”.
One last comment. If you have checked bags, they have almost no chance of making the connection either.
I get to hear the blowback from folks not understanding all these factors every day I’m at work. We almost never leave the gate without a few surprised folks showing up a few minutes too late and needing to be re-accomodated on the next flight. Which was already booked full before they missed their connection.
The industry normally doesn’t sell tight connections for a reason. I think our guidelines are about 50 minutes minimum unless a widebody or international or an express carrier are involved. In which case it’s more.
*Might *it work? Sure. *Will *it work? Not with any kind of reliability.
That was a good post LSL Guy as are all your airplane posts. However it missed it connection by almost 8 years. The OP has not been around for quite a few years. It is a shame he did not let the thread know how his connection went.
Still very good information.
The good thing for him is that they seldom sell his seat to just anybody. So he usually gets to go.
Damn!!
Fooled by a durn zombie. I **hate **it when that happens :smack::smack: :mad::o
I did check the link in the last post, the one that (unnoticed) revived the zombie. So I thought I was good. Growl!!!
I wonder if the OP is, like Charley on the MTA, still trapped at Hopkins waiting for an empty seat to wherever.