ATL Transfer times

I have a booking at the end of January from MAN to RSW via ATL on VS109. We arrive ATL at 15.30pm and depart for RSW at 17.55pm. Normally this would show as a 2hr 25min transfer but the current booking is now showing -35mins and warning that we may need to change our onward flight. Luckily we have global entry so, hopefully, this shouldn't be a problem but as normal transfer times at ATL are about 90 mins including Immigration I wonder why it is now expected to take 3 hours. Is this a sign from VS that they are expecting long delays once the USA reopens. Hopefully not

This is weird, has one of the flight times changed?

I would usually plan for about 2.5 hours minimum anyway in ATL as immigration is so hit and miss and if you are collecting and re-checking luggage it can be a fairly lengthy experience?

Sorry - just remembered a discussion on another thread about some MAN-ATL direct flights being removed from the schedule but I thought this was up to the end of this year only?

I believe the official minimum connection time at ATL is (was?) 1 hour 25 minutes for International to Domestic. I guess VS can decide to restrict selling fares to those with longer connection times at their discretion? I've never seen anything on a booking that shows anything other than the difference in time between arrival and departure, so I've no idea what the -35 minutes means. Like you, I speculate it's against a new connection time taking into account the new covid red tape that's expected once things open up. That's pretty drastic if so and I suspect VS will have a lot of work on their hands re-ticketing people if they double the minimum connection times at other airports as well.

I've never really waited that long in ATL and have always been comfortable with anything around the 2 hour mark. I was on a service from MAN once that was delayed significantly and I only had 50mins from when the engines shutdown at the gate to make my connection. I knew I had already been re-booked onto a later flight as soon as I turned my phone on. But I thought it was still worth a go with global entry. So I ignored and hurried past the VS agent holding a stack of new boarding cards at the gate and made it to the connection as they were about to close the flight. Tried my luck with the agent and got the last seat in First class, which was an upgrade because I was booked into economy and had upgraded the VS leg to upper with miles. I boarded last and they closed the door behind me.

Update. I have solved the problem here by relooking at my booking. Turns out VS have moved the VS109 to Tuesday and booked us on this flight but had not changed the onward flight to RSW. So we were arriving in ATL on Tuesday and departing for RSW 21.5 hours earlier. A phone call to VS sorted it but I had not had any notification by email of the flight change. Luckily I keep checking my booking and this is, obviously, a good idea.

[mitchja]

Glad you got it sorted in the end.

VS are getting really bad now at communicating all these changes they are making. They never emailed me about my Nov flight changes.

I'm still waiting for them to re-ticket this booking they changed and then a WhatsApp agent made it even worse by completely removing the DL legs instead of changing them like I requested.

VS WhatsApp is terrible at the minute and best avoided . Calling seems the only way to get a reliable response now.

Glad you got it sorted in the end.

VS are getting really bad now at communicating all these changes they are making. They never emailed me about my Nov flight changes.

I'm still waiting for them to re-ticket this booking they changed and then a WhatsApp agent made it even worse by completely removing the DL legs instead of changing them like I requested.

VS WhatsApp is terrible at the minute and best avoided . Calling seems the only way to get a reliable response now.

RE WhatsApp - I was rebooking a voucher and I had a message come through at 1am, which funnily enough I didn't see until the following morning. When I replied, I got an automated message saying that WhatsApp had been suspended for the time being. So I ended up having to call anyway. Another vote for phoning and avoiding WhatsApp, plus by the time you're answered you'll know all the words to the songs they play while on hold.