trniesen

In July we have a flight that lands in Newark from Paris at 1 pm on a French airline, we are on a separate ticket on American to go back to DFW, which means after clearing customs and luggage. we will have to go back an check in at AA and go thru TSA again. is 3 and a half hours enough time?

J62

If you check-in online or on your phone app before you depart Paris, then the critical time is baggage check cutoff, which is 45minutes before departure. That means you have 2hrs 45min to drop off your bags, from the time of your scheduled arrival. You won't need to check-in on AA at Newark and you'll already have your boarding pass.

You can (should) be able to drop off your bags with AA right after you leave customs. If you cannot do that, you'd need to bring your bags to the AA desk at your departure terminal whiich isn't hard but could take another 15min or so to get to.

Unless your incoming flight is significantly delayed I think you will have enough time.

The questions to ask though are

1. what will I do if I miss my connecting flight?
2. what can i do to minimize that risk. - to that point, you can utilize the US customs & border control app to get you through immigration faster. How much it might help you I do not know...

janisj

Welcome to Fodors. J62 answered it . . . IF you arrive on time or only a little late should be plenty of time to make the connection (even being the pit that is EWR )

But no one knows if / by how much the AF flight will be delayed??? Jeeze -- CDG and EWR on the same day. Not fun.

tom_mn

My guess is that they are coming from Orly on a French discount airline. AF would want to feed into the Delta hub at JFK I would think.

I would look into what funds if any can can be recovered from a missed flight if you check in and miss the flight. There may be a financial advantage to not checking in until you are sure you will make the flight.

janisj

Oh -- you're right. I don't think AF has any flights into EWR (not 100% sure about that)

Seamus

If you are arriving EWR on French Bee or La Compagnie from Orly they arrive EWR terminal B and AA flies out of A. You will need to clear immigration, retrieve your luggage and clear customs in B then take the monorail (AirTrain) to Terminal A to check your bags. If your arrival is on time you should be fine.
J62- they won't be able to drop their bags right after customs in B as the bags will not be tagged to their destination on AA. Will have to go to Terminal A to check bags. If checked in online could use curbside or kiosk to check bags.

trniesen

thank you, my wife and i have global entry, so that seems to be easy now a days. It is rechecking in that I was worried about.

trniesen

You are right I forgot about CDG in Paris actually the airline is LaCompagnie,
it is First class only airline they had a black Friday sale, first class for $2,000 a ticket so I bought them and now trying to figure out the back end of it.
Thank you

janisj

You'll likely be fine -- it is a small plane and so not a huge number of bags to wait for, and you have Global Entry which (usually) shortens security significantly. As long as you land even close to on time.

BUT -- just one question -- you say First Class? I thought La Compagnie was all Business Class -- unless things have changed and they've refitted their fleet. That is still a very decent fare for Business and they do have lie-flats, but AFAIK it won't be 1st or even separate / all aisle seating like business/first on most carriers.

Seamus

If you are flying La Compagnie it is not CDG, but Orly (ORY) where you will depart from Paris. Arrival is still EWR Terminal B and you should be fine making your AA connection.

trniesen

You are right it is business.

aliced

AA flies in/out of Terminal A, which is brand new, and bit off the path of the others, I would advise checking back after it is operational for a couple months, assume it may not be on the Monorail for day 1 next week. And Air France does fly directly into EWR, since we've taken it, although the Fodorite now clarifies the airliner as not AF. Last but not least, why, JANISJ, do you refer to EWR as "the pit" -- we've flown in/out domestically and internationally without connections for all of our lives with a few unpleasant experiences in/out of LAG and JFK. Do you speak from experience or just prejudice?

Danielle811

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​​​​​​Short of unforeseen delays leaving Paris, 3.5 hours should be plenty of time, especially with Global Entry. Even if you were on the same ticket, you would have to go through customs, collect and recheck your luggage, transit between terminals, and clear TSA again. For what it's worth, it took me approximately an hour from touchdown to the United lounge going through that process this week.

That said, two weeks ago, the general TSA line at Terminal C took almost an hour by itself. But again, with Global Entry, you should avoid most of that chaos.

janisj

I've not flown in TO EWR or out of there -- but I have transited there several times to / from Europe. Maybe for locals/originating passengers it is fine. But IME transiting there is no fun. Especially changing terminals. I just haven't found it a pleasant place - though I've not seen the new T-A (the old one was probably 50 years old and a pit.

StuDudley

""That said, two weeks ago, the general TSA line at Terminal C took almost an hour by itself. But again, with Global Entry, you should avoid most of that chaos.""

Are you saying that if I have Global Entry, it will diminish the line/chaos at security check when getting on a flight?? It is my understanding that Global Entry is just for speeding things up at Passport Control when entering the US from another country. On my return to SFO from Paris in December, there was a 10 min wait at non-Global Entry passport control. When we returned in early October, there was no line at Passport Control. We got through Passport Control faster than the people peeling off & going through the Global Entry kiosk.

We have Pre-TSA and there is a separate line from the normal TSA check - but it is still chaotic and I don't think it gains much time.

Stu Dudley

Danielle811

According to the TSA website, Global Entry members receive TSA Pre-check benefits.

tomfuller

I have no way of knowing whether "the pit" has improved since the one time that my wife and I returned from Lisbon in 2004. It would have been better to get back into the US if another plane from overseas had not landed about 5 minutes before us. There are 2 or maybe 3 entrances down into "the pit". You can see how many hundreds of people are ahead of you as you walk down. We did make our connection to a flight from EWR to Pittsburgh but it was close.
If you do miss your connecting flight, remember that EWR does have an Amtrak stop so you could go to another airport such as PHL, BWI or even Reagan National.

janisj

And its opening is delayed yet again. But only a month or so so will be up and running by the time you travel

suze

I've got nothing about Newark but isn't 3.5 hrs enough to do most things?? Even claiming baggage, immigration, customs, recheck, etc. Another thought if you feel things are tight is shipping (some) things home and going carry-on only. That always saves a step.