London to ATL

I'll probably be going to Atlanta mid-January, I could get a direct flight, but was thinking about using Virgin for transatlantic, and Delta for the ???<->ATL leg

question is which airport to change at, from experience NY can have long waits at immigration, but there are several other options

aside from ease of connection, the other thing is which route will have the best chance of spare UC seats at check-in, so I can try for an upgrade PE->UC (company agent has to book, so I won't be able to try an upgrade before flight date)

I'm thinking there can't be that many people wanting to go to Boston/Chicago/Washington in January, but maybe I'm wrong!

any comments/recommendations on the best route?

[Neil]

What about MCO or MIA - neither are that popular destinations in January and both well located/linked for the ATL connection.

I'd thought about MCO, but I used it last year (meeting was Orlando not Atlanta) and there were no PE/UC seats free on the return leg (I was in economy, but got an exit row seat in the bubble which was really good for sleeping)

some others on the same flight had big queues for immigration too, but I'd got a PE outbound and moved fast once off the plane

my logic was cold places might have more spare seats

Chicago's a summer-only route so that's out.

Boston - the VS11 gets in around 5.30pm and the last DL flight to ATL leaves at 6.45 which is pushing it so if DL's a must, that's also out unless you're prepared to overnight in BOS.

Washington - the VS21 gets in around 2.30pm so a bit better, you might make DL's 4.10 to ATL though it'd be tight, but there's a 7.00 as a fallback.

Remember though with only one flight daily to both BOS and IAD, UC availability isn't guaranteed even in January - and conversely if it's really quiet it's not unknown for VS to cancel the flight.

MCO and MIA are both risky when it comes to immigration queues and the MCO planes only have small UC cabins so availability isn't guaranteed - MIA has a decent connection though, VS5 arrives around 4pm and there's a DL flight to ATL at 7.

Ultimately all the options have pros and cons so you may have to compromise somehow.

Almost anywhere may have dire queues at immigration, MIA is notorious (although both times I've been through there it's been 10min or less!), the VS21 gets into IAD at a rather busy time as well... I've always found EWR quite good for short waits at immigration but not sure about connections that late in the evening.

Would MAN-MCO be an option? They seem to be using a 3-class A330 a bit at the moment (work colleague commented that their flight was switched from a 747 at the last minute) which obviously has a bigger UC cabin - though I'm not sure how likely the A330 is to continue through the winter...

[Neil]

MAN is going totally 747 very soon so no A330 at all.

thanks for the info

think I need to do some digging on the company booking site and see what it turns up as 'allowed' options for connecting flights, then at least I can narrow down from there