1.5-hour connection time for an international flight from Vancouver (YVR) to Sydney (SYD) through San Francisco (SFO)

Question

My partner (Australian) and I (American) are visiting Canada and the US in October. Our last flight back home involves either a 4.5-hour layover in LAX or a 1.5-hour layover in SFO. Both options are single ticket through either Delta (LAX) or United (SFO), United being the flight with a 1.5 hr layover.

I am more than sure that the 4.5-hour layover will be overkill, as I will go through immigration quickly and he should be a bit quicker, as he will be able to use those kiosks for non-residents who have visited the US in the last 5 years (we will have just spent 2 weeks there prior). Still, 1.5 hours ins't a lot of time. My questions are:

1. Are we required to go through immigration/customs for an international to international flight?
2. Is 1.5 hours enough time?

Answer 1

If it's two United flights, then all you need to do is walk to the next gate, nothing else involved. The Sydney flight will leave from the international terminal, which is connected to United's Terminal 3. That could take more than 5 minutes (a ~3,500 ft walk, with some moving sidewalks, is the worst case scenario if they're as far apart as possible), but you won't have to go through immigration/customs or security or handle your checked bags or anything else at SFO.

You will have to go through US immigration/customs in Vancouver (all passengers do, even for international-to-international connections in the US), so be sure to arrive at the airport extra early.

Delta does not fly from SFO to Sydney, but if you're flying Delta into SFO, you'd need to change terminals to reach any flight to Sydney, which will take more time and mean you need to go through security again.

1.5 hours should be sufficient if your flight is not significantly delayed, but it, as jpatokal points out, only leaves so much margin for delays before connecting to a flight that leaves once every 24 hours. If your flight from Vancouver is sufficiently late, you'll likely be waiting until the next day for another flight. Whether or not that risk is acceptable to you is up to you, based on your need to be in Sydney that day.

Answer 2

1. Usually you would both have to go through immigration, since the US does not recognize the concept of sterile transit. This includes collecting and rechecking your bags. However, @ZachLipton correctly points out that YVR is a preclearance airport, meaning you will complete this in Canada before your flight to SFO.

2. On paper the minimum connecting time for international to domestic/intl is 80 minutes, so if you have already checked into your connecting flight and have no bags, it's technically feasible (especially with the preclearance) but uncomfortably tight. However, since you're connecting to a flight to Sydney, if you miss it you'll be stuck for a minimum of 24 hours waiting for the next one, since all flights to Australia leave around the same time. So I'd strongly encourage you to play it safe and take the 4.5 hr connection.

Answer 3

Almost all flights from Vancouver to the US go through preclearance, which means you will arrive in San Francisco as a domestic flight, without any special procedures. And departing international flights in the US are procedurally identical to departing domestic flights, as the US has no exit checks; you simply walk onto the flight from inside the terminal just like a domestic flight (sometimes gates for departing international and domestic flights are next to each other with no difference in appearance). So basically this is no different from a domestic-to-domestic connection.

Depending on which terminals your flights are arriving and departing from (you have not provided enough information to tell), you may have to leave the secured area and re-enter security. In that case, you should leave extra time for the wait in the security line. 1.5 hours is probably enough if there is no delay in the first flight, but it is cutting it close if there is any delay.

Answer 4

One more problem: SFO has a fog problem--their main runways are too close together for instrument flying rules. Visibility drops, the airport capacity gets cut in half. Generally 90 minutes is fine for a connection at SFO, but twice now (out of maybe 20 connections) I have arrived more than 90 minutes late due to fog. (The first time we just barely caught our flight, the second time I knew better and was on an earlier flight, the recommended flight landed after we were already sitting on the second plane.)

Thus I will not book a connection that short at SFO, period.