Time between connecting flights in Norway

Question

I'll be traveling from Frankfurt to Trondheim (Norway) in late August. I'll be taking a Lufthansa flight from Frankfurt to Oslo and then a Norwegian flight from Oslo to Trondheim. The Lufthansa flight is scheduled to arrive in the Gardermoen airport at 18:00 and the Norwegian flight is scheduled to leave at 20:20 (from the same airport).

So my question is: will this 2 hours and 20 minutes interval between the flights be enough to do everything that has to be done? And by this I mean going through customs and immigration, retrieve luggage from Lufthansa and then dispatch it with Norwegian.

I do not know the Gardermoen airport and I haven't taken international flights in a while, so I'm bit worried.

So what do you think?

Thanks!

Edit: the flights are not booked in a single ticket.

Answer 1

"And by this I mean going through customs and immigration"

There would be no immigration in this flight. It is just a domestic (intra-Schengen) flight from Frankfurt to Oslo. You just exit from the aircraft and go to the luggage belt. This is not an "international" flight (non-Schengen to Schengen).

As another comment said, in normal circumstances, more than 2 hours is quite sufficient but as there have been a lot of news about chaos at European airports, no one knows. Just 2 days ago there was a news which said "5,000 suitcases from Lufthansa passengers alone are left behind at Frankfurt Airport every day. Some of these bags are now being transported by truck to Munich Airport because there is more capacity there to deliver the luggage to its owners". Now, if something like that happens in your case, then it may be difficult to make the connection as you will first have to wait and see if your bag didn't arrive, then contact Lufthansa desk, lodge a complaint, etc. This can take a lot of times.

But if your luggage is in your flight from Frankfurt, and your flight from Frankfurt is not delayed, you should be fine.

To be honest, everything here is speculation. No one can predict what happens. In normal times, you have enough time for the transit. These days, no one knows what happens in that particular case.

Answer 2

Remember that with flights on separate tickets (a “self-connection”), if you miss your second flight, you’re in your own: you’ll be considered a no-show, your ticket will most likely be cancelled, and you’ll have to buy (and pay for) a new ticket at last minute prices, usually a lot more expensive. If the next flight is the next day, hotels and meals will be on you.

Also remember you need to have checked-in for the second flight before the check-in deadline. You’re lucky, in your case it’s only 30 minutes, but that still makes the critical path (deplane, wait for luggage, go to departures, queue at check-in) only 1h50.

If all goes well that’s plenty of time. But if there are any issues (first flight cancelled or delayed, slow delivery of luggage…) it can become extremely tight.

There are probably not many other flights (if any) after your chosen flight, which further complicates things.

In normal times the rule of thumb for self-connections is at least 4 hours (more of the second flight is expensive or infrequent, usually a long-haul flight, or if there is immigration involved and it can be slow). These days…