Hey everyone,
I booked a flight from Geneva to San Francisco with a connection in Zurich (GVA → ZRH → SFO). This itinerary was cheaper than booking just the ZRH → SFO leg and I’m living in GVA so it made sense.
But now I’m wondering if the connection is even doable. According to my ticket:
Flight GVA → ZRH lands at 12:05
The SFO flight departs at 13:15 (so boarding ends around 12:40-12:45?)
Even if I’m off the plane by, say, 12:20, that leaves around 20 minutes to make it through the security and US screening for the long-haul flight. That sounds nearly impossible, right?
I can change the Geneva-Zurich flight to an earlier one, but it would cost me an extra 400 CHF…
What do you all think? Is this connection actually realistic in Zurich, or should I play it safe and pay the extra? Any tips from people who have done this connection before?
Thank you
https://www.reddit.com/gallery/1pqgf1l
Posted by Androz2091
22 Comments
Yep, they arrange your express layover if the 1st plane would happen to be delayed, incl. fast customs
Within ZRH you should be fine, after all you won’t have to deal with your checked luggage in ZRH
Assuming both flights are on the same ticket, it should be fine, just don’t waste time in the terminal. If the first flight is late and you miss the second flight, I believe it is the airline’s responsibility to ensure you make it to your destination and potentially cover additional costs eg meal vouchers and hotel vouchers
Yes that is definitely possible.
Transfer time should be around 25min to the E gates.
There is no additional security, only passport control which is usually very expeditious.
Plus, if the GVA-ZRH flight is delayed and it gets tight, Swiss will usually provide a direct transfer, I.e. a bus that will pick you up at the gate on arrival and bring you straight through passport control to the other aircraft.
Plus plus, the long haul flights will almost always wait for connecting pax.
Plus plus plus, the midday long haul flights are almost always delayed anyway because of the departure wave between 1100 and 1400.
So, overall, a lot would have to go wrong for you to not make that connection.
The problem is if the plane arrives late. If you check flightradar24 and put the number of your flight, you’ll see it usually arrives some minutes later but not dramatically.
However, I think the flight to the US needs to wait for you for some time. Especially because it is the same company. To be honest, if your trip to the US can be accepted with one day cancelled because of a bad scenario, you’d also be able to receive 600 CHF from the company. If it is a short trip and you don’t want to miss for sure one day, I think the risk is quite big.
But as I like risk and do not think too much of bad consequences, I usually take such plans anyway because it’s cheaper.
Realistic, I’ve actually taken this route with similar time in ZRH before
Hi so a couple of things at play here, on the one hand the gate only closes 10mins before departure, so at 13:05, meaning in theory this transfer should be well doable, on the other hand though, 2813 is notoriously delayed which can make the transfer a bit tight.
Now, an airline company is always about minimizing their cost and rebooking you for a different or a later flight costs them a ton of money, especially given you won’t be the only one with that connection. There’s two things that LX does at ZRH to mitigate this, for one they have direct transfer buses that take you directly from the GVA flight to a separate passport control, then through additional security and to your gate, so if there’s a sufficient numer of transferring passengers, this is one thing they could do, the other thing is that long haul flights are always planned with some flight time reserves to ensure an on-time arrival, so if it’s just 5min or so that you’d be late chances are it’d make more economic sense for them to just hold the plane a little rather than rebook you, pay your compensation and maybe your hotel and food.
It should be doable, barring flight delays. If you miss it because of a delay of the incoming aircraft you will be rebooked to the next one for free. Of course that may be the day after and far from ideal, but something to consider.
Via GVA is still a minor difference. Try MXP-ZRH-SFO 🙂
Question to those who maybe have tried it, is going to ZH by train a possible alternative in this case? Like taking 8 or 9 am train from Geneva and arriving around 11-12 to ZH. Or train would be to tiresome?
Thank you for all your comments and help, I didn’t expect it! 🙏🙏
I will keep my flight and see how it goes!
Recent flight gva>Zh>Seoul. I waited on the plane for the bus to arrive about 15 min. Then the bus waited just in front of the terminal for another 10 minutes. In the end, I didn’t make my flight because of “ground events” beyond my control.
It is possible, and you don’t even need to take the gva-zrh stretch. In fact it’s often a train and I’ve booked it but just hopped on at Bern and essentially got a free train ride to zrh
You only have to go through passport control and the document check before boarding takes less than a minute and can also be done at the gate when boarding if time is short.
Only problem is when the Geneva flight is late. But in any case it is the airlines responsibility to guarantee you get to your destination unless you take unreasonably long for the transfer. Just go straight to the gate and you’ll be fine.
Everyday someone wakes up and is surpised about this 😁
From an Airline perspective this makes a lot of sense: A direkt flight is something people value, a lot of people are willing to pay extra for this. The Swiss Flight ZRH-SFO is direct, Swiss knows it can charge more to passenger on that route for the direct flight. Other airlines on that route which do not offer a direct flight need to sell their option involving a connecting flight cheaper or else nobody would book them on that route.
From GVA Swiss doesn’t have a direct flight to SFO. Anyone wanting to fly from GVA to SFO must change plane somewhere, many airlines are competing for these passengers. Swiss can only compete with them for these passenger if they offer similar prices.
So yes from a business perspective it makes total sense that GVA-ZRH-SFO is cheaper than ZRH-SFO. Its a different market and different product that is sold.
Expert in flights pricing here.
This is because of a few things:
– Zurich airport taxes are higher than Geneva
– This is a non-direct flight, so less valuable for business/rich travelers
– Zurich departing flights are usually more expensive (people are willing to pay more)
– some other potentially complex faring rules but probably much less important here
Now if you want to start from Zurich Airport with Swiss, search tickets starting from Geneva TRAIN station (Geneva Cornavin train station ZHT)) on swiss.ch.
Check that the itinerary does train to Zurich and then to your destination. You will get a PDF for the train ticket.
Not a big deal if you miss the train and have to go directly to the Zurich airport.
This might not work for short haul but you can save sometimes for long trips and even accumulate more miles.
2 of my friends had this exact route booked 6months ago. Other friends booked the direct flight and went to ZRH by train, they obviously made the flight.
The GVA->ZRH got delayed and the two didn’t make the connection. They had to stay the night in Zurich because the next flight to SFO was scheduled for the next day. They regretted not taking the train and more expensive ticket.
Yes it’s frequent, even if it seems stupid. I always check the price of gva-zrh-international. I went to Tokyo last year and it was 1200 chf instead of 1700.
if the flight is on time
LX38 is always late for boarding. You will be ok
Even if you make the connection, you’re checked bag might not make it. I had two vacations where my bag missed the flight in Zurich. One of them arrived to my final destination 5 days later. One of them never made it even though I was calling every day telling them exactly where it was (thanks to the airtag inside). As a result, I never book an itinerary with GVA to ZUR anymore. I just book directly from Zurich and take the train to get there.
This is so annoying. I find so many times MXP-ZHR-destination or VCE-ZHR-destination significantly cheaper than flying from Zurich. Just recently I was looking at Edelweiss flights to Reykyavik. 800 from Zurich and same flight for 400 if I take an additional Swiss flight from MXP. For a family of 4 we drive to Milano or take a day of holidays in Venice for that… worst I have seen was nearly 600 CHF cheaper to LAX if I went from VCE…