First time I went through O’Hare, I was so disappointed. I had heard the horror stories of how it was this vast place that you had to run to get across to your connection. I stepped into the terminal, found a monitor and I was like two gates away from my connection.
Sometimes flight attendants will ask passengers to wait until people with tight connections have debarked; it is never enforced. Gate agents at arrival will tell you they will call the other gate to let them know you’re coming. Ask the gate agents at your departure, and they will have heard nothing. So basically they do not care at all about passenger input.
One place I have noticed flexibility is that almost all my flights tend to arrive a little early. I assume they are scheduled for a little longer than they will take to allow for takeoff delay–like passengers running from another late flight. I’ve also often heard pilots say they will make up time from a late departure by flying faster; I assume there is an underground bunker with computers powered by spinning wheels of magnetic tape where they decide if it is acceptable to burn more fuel to ensure passengers make their next connection and don’t create knock-on effects that disrupt the whole system.
As the question has been given some very fine answers, if I may -
Return with me to yesteryear, when men were real men, women were real women, and anybody could walk into the airport, and walk right up to any gate.
I was in the Air Force, and traveled a great deal, on both commercial aircraft and military. ‘Transportation’ Would make travel arrangements, and come time to travel commercial that would do anything to save a few cents. The joke was that they would book a route that passed thru ATL twice on Delta if it saved 10 cents. They laughed about it, but we believed it. As a result, I spent many hours in Atlanta, Dallas/Fort Worth, and, of course, Chicago.
One day, me and another guy arrive with only an hour to change planes, and we were walking toward the gate. Along the way, I noted a young Airman, fresh out of Basic Military Training (you can tell) button holed by someone asking for money.
This was common back then. If you see the movie Airplane there is scene that is a callback to this time. It doesn’t happen any more, and that’s a good thing.
The sight of this scammer hitting up someone who, frankly, didn’t have much money disturbed me. Partly because it was unfair, but mostly because I was likewise scammed a few years prior.
I said to my self ‘NO’, walked up to the Airman, showed my ID (we traveled in civilian cloths), said ‘I’m Sgt. (Dobbs), this is Sgt. (other guy), we’re on our way to the USO, would you like to come with us?’. My offer was readily accepted.
About 50 feet later, I said ‘we aren’t going to the USO, our gate is here, but the USO is down at the end, turn left, and they have a nice lounge with free books, hot dogs and lemon-aid, along with a nice place to sit, they got signs, you can’t miss it’.
I’ve spent hours in that USO lounge, and had lunch there a time or two. It’s probably not there anymore.
My problem with O’Hare has been the opposite. Several times, we arrive with the hour to get to the next gate - only to be told that the next flight is late, then it’s not coming, then there’s another plane being prepared, then they’re waiting for a fresh flight crew. I think our record is a 4-hour delay from our planned departure. At least, there was a plane-full of people waiting so they were motivated to get a new plane rather than put us all up for the night.
I don’t know how they would enforce it. But when flight attendants have asked this on flights I’ve been on, people were pretty good about not blocking the aisles until the rushees got off.
However that was before the airlines refined their suckiness and passnegers got crazier, so I can’t guarantee it still works.
As Voyager says, it’s a polite request from the FAs, not an enforceable order. How much and which other passengers cooperate and which don’t varies greatly. A flight from, say Des Moines to Denver, sure. A flight to or from NYC? Fuggeddaboudit.
Ten years ago that may have been appropriate. Nowadays any modern airline has displays at the outbound gate that show them where every expected passenger is coming from and when they can be expected to walk up to the outbound gate if they make typical progress through the terminal. Calling around just takes two customer service workers out of their job of handling people’s face-to-face unpredictable needs. They also know who’s coming by cart or wheelchair versus walking. They don’t know who can run and who can only hobble. Unless you’re unable to make typical walking speed, there’s not much point in talking to the outbound gate agent; you may waste more time trying to get that message in than it’s worth to you.
And as I said earlier, the mere fact some passengers are in the terminal and are predicted to arrive at the outbound gate at or just after end of boarding does NOT ensure the process will be delayed to accommodate them. Sometimes yes, sometimes no. For reasons sound or stupid or random.
The flight schedules are updated about monthly. And are based on historical experience for that month about taxi-out, taxi-in, and airborne ATC delay durations vs. times of day. This also is adjusted for days of the week, holidays, or major events, etc. Plus of course historical and predicted average winds.
Then a fudge factor gets added. How big depends on lots of secret sauce they don’t share with us. Part of it is simply looking at the shape of the distribution of those delay factors & winds. Crudely speaking, if they simply went with the averages, you’d expect 50% of flights to be early and 50% to be late, assuming 100% departed exactly on time. Being only 50% on-time probably isn’t good enough and given the reality that a hefty fraction of flights actually depart 5-10 minutes late the actual on-time success rate if they just went with average delays & winds would be more like 25% or less.
So they pad out the scheduled duration to raise the expectation to whatever their goal is, maybe 95% chance of arrival within 5 minutes given an on-time departure. Let’s assume this reliability pad is 10 minutes over the averages.
So now it’s time to go fly it.
If we’re lucky, we get to push back 5 minutes early with everybody aboard. That may move us earlier in the “rush hour” of that bank departing. So because of a shorter line of airplanes in line in front of us we end up spending 12 minutes taxiing out instead of the expected 17. As we lift off we’re 10 minutes ahead of the plan that already has 10 minutes of pad in it. Viola, we’re 20 minutes early and haven’t done a thing.
Sometimes the airport is taking off to, say, the east. Other times to the west. One of those directions is convenient to where we’re going and one is not. Taking off the “wrong” direction can add 5-7 minutes of flying time. The statistics used to build the schedule include which direction is more prevalent. If typically the orientation is unfavorable and today it’s favorable, now we’re 27 minutes early as we lift off.
Then there’s enroute wind. The difference between typical direct head- vs. tail-winds is about 10 minutes per hour of cruise absent a speed adjustment. The difference between worst case is more like 20 minutes per hour. As a practical matter, we plan to fly faster into headwinds and slower with tailwinds to offset about half the difference due to wind. But you can see how a schedule made with assumed unfavorable winds that gets flown on a random favorable day can gain a further 5-10 minutes per hour. For a typical 3 hour (gate to gate) flight, that’s a further 20ish minutes.
Wow! We’re 45 minutes early and the pilots have done nothing.
Up in cruise the airplanes aren’t evenly spaced out. They pop up at random from wherever they took off from and drop down wherever they’re going. Sometimes by luck of the draw they’re all neatly spaced out. Sometimes you get a gaggle where 5 or 8 airplanes are all going to the same place and they’re right on top of one another. When that occurs, enroute ATC has to fix that; their mission is to deliver a smooth neatly spaced flow to the ATC people downstream who manage the actual arrivals to each airport.
So if there’s a gaggle ATC will have the ones slightly in the lead speed up as much as practical, and slow the ones at the back as much as practical. In worst cases, the stragglers will need to zigzag to further waste time and let the pack spread out. This can amount to about +/- 5 minutes difference vs. what a single airplane would have done if left to its own plan.
The arrival airport also has favorable and unfavorable orientations. And statistics about which is more likely. If we’re lucky and conveniently aligned to slide right in that’ll save 10 minutes over having to go past the field and turn round to land in the opposite direction.
Last of all, whether we arrive during a lull or a rush is worth +/- 5 minutes.
Once in awhile all these factors align favorably and we’re an hour early having done nothing out of the ordinary. Equally, once in awhile they all align adversely and we start out behind and get behinder with every turn of the cards. Of course the common case is we get some good with the bad.
For most of my career at various companies the gist of the tactical policy given to the pilots is this: After you’re airborne, figure out how early/late the computers predict you will be. In addition to the hard data predictions, adjust for your experience about the route and today’s tactical weather and traffic. If you expect to be significantly early, slow down vs. the plan to maximize economy and still arrive a few minutes early. If expected to be +/- 10 minutes of schedule, fly the plan. If 10-20 minutes late, speed up and aggressively work for better routing or altitudes to pass slower traffic. If more than 20 minutes late, don’t bother speeding up; it won’t get your within the 15 minute DOT on-time window & just wastes money. But do work the system for any costless advantage you can.
Then of course there’s the final irony. When all the tolerances break our way and the Fates have truly smiled upon us and we land an hour early …
The gate we’re expected to use won’t open up for another 45 minutes. So there we sit; parked in the “penalty box” awaiting our gate. Sometimes I think the Fates hate us. Or you. Or both. 
Interesting. One of the things I’ve wondered about - despite others’ horror stories, in 30 years of flying, I think my luggage has only been lost twice (once when my clever company gave me a 40-minute connection time in a small airport. By the time I landed, I had 10 minutes to get out through security and back in the other side. I made it, my luggage did not. Then we sat for 10 minutes, while I was panting, waiting for a different flight’s connecting passengers for my flight to Toronto.)
So if the plane lands with plenty of time, presumably the luggage makes it to the connection in an appropriate amount of time. If the passenger has not shown up, has the luggage been loaded already? Do they then have to off-load it, or do they know (I presume) which luggage was on a connection that arrived an hour ago? Or is that “must fly with luggage” not strictly enforced?
I know I’ve been on the occasional flight where they’ve delayed the plane looking for someone’s luggage to off-load, but I suspect it was not a connection issue.
The bags-and-passengers-together rules differ between international and domestic. Also they depend on why the two became separated in the first place. The details shift from time to time for reasons that probably make sense to the security people but sure don’t to me. Beyond that, carriers are free to impose more stringent requirements for whatever reasons they want.
Not much more can be said without digging into the CFRs to see what TSA has put into the public arena.
I have no experience of O’Hare or any other American airport, but I have been through Heathrow many times. Whether you are on two separate flights or booked through is the key. Back in May, we got off a flight from Istanbul and there were several passengers who were booked through to Edinburgh. Our flight was a little late and there was staff at the gate ready to hustle the passengers off to their connecting flight. One asked about luggage and they were told that the crew would be able to intercept it. I assume that this happens at most international airports.
Yesterday I flew in to O’Hare (United) Terminal F I think? And had a departing flight (also United) but from Terminal C, 40 minutes in between.
It was a brisk walk, probably 15 minutes, but I made it OK - arriving 10 minutes before boarding.
You should be OK if you are fine with walking at a decent pace.
Warning: if you’re flying United you may have to pass through “The Sky’s The Limit” concourse. Some people love it but the first time I flew via O’Hare was on a red-eye from Seattle to the East Coast. I got there around 5 AM with 2 hours of sleep for the night, got lost and then came upon this walkway with flashing lights. The website quoted below says it’s a beautiful vibrant artwork but honestly making my way through it was a nightmare–I thought I was losing it.
Here’s a video; I just showed it to hubby who says that it would probably give him a migraine:
“Sky’s the Limit” Chicago O’Hare Airport
“If any of us remember traveling through Concourse B and C at Chicago O’Hare Airport, we owe it all to this vibrant light installation which was put in place by Michael Hayden in 1987. Aimed at keeping travelers entertained during their long trek through the concourses, this flashing neon light installation plays music and illuminates the entire terminal as you travel through the rainbows. If you’re stuck in Chicago this holiday season, take a trip down to Terminal 1 and enjoy this beautiful light show!”
And sometimes everyone has a tight connection. I was on a Providence-JFK flight that was nearly two hours late, and the couple who asked for the flight attendant to make the request was very scandalized when they weren’t the first people off the plane, and started tapping on shoulders and instructing other passengers to move aside for the very important people with a very important connection. Apparently the other 48 people were on a plane from Providence to JFK because they wanted to go see the statue or something.
In the last few years I’ve been on early flights waiting for gates far more often than late flights. Do you think the publication of on-time statistics has increased the fudge factor?
If I exclude weather related delays and the random mechanical problem, I can’t remember a late flight.
The United terminal is terminal 1, with concourses A, B, and C. It sounds like you flew into terminal 2, concourse F. Some United Express flights land in that terminal. (And, if you’re flying international, United flies into terminal 5.) i
Inter-terminal transfers are facilitated by the people mover/monorail (though between terminal 1, 2, and 3, you can go completely by foot, if you want, which it sounds like you did), while intra-terminal/concourse transfers are by solely foot.
The “publication of on-time statistics” hasn’t changed since the mid 1980s.
What seems to have changed is the willingness of corporate travel departments to choose their suppliers ruthlessly on that basis. And the willingness of airline management to apply a big enough fudge factor to offset the vast majority of the vagaries. No doubt the fear of a random shellacking on social media when somebody with a following has a bad experience plays a part.
In recent testimony before Congress on the topic of divesting ATC from FAA the spokesman for the US airline industry group pointed out that airplanes are no slower than in 1975. Chicago is now no farther from Washington nor New York than it was in 1975. Yet scheduled flight times between those places are 45 minutes longer. 100% of that difference is due to inadequate provision of monopoly government services to meet the ever-growing commercial demand.
To your question, unstated in the testimony was how much of that 45 minutes is an actual increase in delay and how much is a decrease in wishful thinking. For certain with more modern (post 1990s) computer systems it’s easier for carriers to do a valid statistical analysis rather than relying on some guy in a cube farm applying his gut feelings on how much fudge is enough.
Bottom line though I do agree with your contention. We’re almost never DOT late (>15 minutes) arriving unless we break down before departure or massive weather at either end intervenes.
In my recent experience, a lot of (maybe even a majority of) United Express flights are now using Terminal 2. United seems to now use Terminal 1 primarily, if not exclusively, for flights using bigger (i.e., non-commuter / non-United Express) jets.
They have a walkway that connects Terminals 1 and 2, which is on the “secure” side of the TSA stations – so, if you use that walkway, you don’t need to leave a secure area, or get re-screened when you get to the other terminal. I believe that United also has a shuttle bus that operates in between Terminals 1 and 2.
If you use the monorail people mover, or go downstairs to the tunnels which connect all three domestic terminals (the ones with the moving walkways), you’re leaving the secure area, and need to go through TSA again.
Ah, good point. Forgot about TSA.
By the way, if you promise not to pass it around, we locals can let you in on a Big Secret about waiting at O’Hare. There is free wine, beer, soft drinks, sushi and chicken wings along with complimentary massages in Terminal 4. Just ask any gate agent for directions to the Terminal 4 Beer Desk.
As of a number of years ago you can walk from one end of concourse A to the other end of concourse L all on the secure side. Hitting all the intermediate letters along the way. When I have time to kill in ORD I walk the whole damn thing. It’s about 2-1/2 miles round trip if you go all the way out and back each finger.
Concourses A through L encompasses all the domestic carriers and some of their and their partners’ international departures.
They’re now building a people mover that will connect concourse L to the now-separate international terminal Concourse M. This too will be on the secure side. It’ll open in probably late 2018.
Is Terminal 4 also where they store the prop wash?