Will I make my connecting flight?

Well, first of all, here are all the afternoon-evening non-stop Skyteam (Delta's alliance) transatlantic flights from ATL on the 7th of December: - Delta to Paris CDG at 1530 - Delta to Frankfurt FRA at 1630 - Delta to London LHR at 1730 - Delta to Amsterdam AMS at 1730 - Delta to Brussels BRU at 1745 - Delta to Dublin DUB at 1750 - Air France to Paris CDG at 1820 - Delta to Madrid MAD at 1900 - Delta to Manchester MAN at 1910 - Air France to Paris CDG at 2105 - Delta to London at 2235 - KLM to Amsterdam AMS at 1050 What you really want to do, though, is this: find out the SkyTeam alliance partners' connections that will get you from Birmingham to Manchester (maybe get Birmingham UK/Leeds as well just in case?) and take it along as a printout - that way, if the worst happens *and you're delayed in Birmingham, Alabama*, you can have a paper reference to show someone at Delta without them looking things up without considering all the options. It'll be handy to have all the relevant airport codes as well. Not to knock Delta or its employees, but while (presumably) airline employees know where their own airline flies, I wouldn't expect a Delta check-in agent in Birmingham, Alabama to know that KLM flies to, say, Leeds and Durham and Newcastle and Glasgow as well as Manchester, or that if they did, that Leeds, in particular, is close enough to Manchester to consider re-routing you there if you were open to it and the connection was better. To generate the printout, http://matrix.itasoftware.com/search.htm. Plug in these values on the "one-way" search page: - departing from: BHM - on the next line, paste this, with no quote marks: "/ alliance skyteam" - destination: MAN (if you're open to Birmingham, UK as well, add it in with a comma: "MAN, BHX" - you can add as many UK airports as you like this way!) These are all possible flights on Air France, KLM, Alitalia, and Delta, and their Skyteam partners, which are going from Birmingham, Alabama to Manchester, UK next Friday. There are A LOT of possible combinations.

I made it! My flight from Bham got in on time, & I raced across ATL - my second flight was already boarding, but I got on just fine. Thanks so much again for all the helpful responses!

Seconding sitting as close to the front of the plane as possible - which likely means paying for an "Economy Comfort" seat on the Birmingham-ATL leg. Otherwise it can take a LONG time to disembark on these flights as everyone has huge complicated carry-ons in order to avoid bag check fees. If you have a smartphone, download the Delta app. A lot of their flights have WiFi, and you can use the Delta app in-flight without having to pay the WiFi fee. This way you can keep up-to-date while in the air on the anticipated arrival time of your first flight (especially useful if in-flight announcements are lacking), as well as the gate for your connecting flight.

Did you make it?! :)

hoyland, thanks for the idea to contact DeltaAssist - I followed your advice & they reassured me that it's a legal connection (though the minimum connecting time at ATL is typically 60 minutes). When you say you purchased it on Kayak--did you link directly to Delta or another booking agent that will guarantee re-booking for a flight that is missed due to scheduling. I should've been clearer - the Kayak listing linked to the Delta site, and I assume that the flight wouldn't have appeared as a single ticket if Delta hadn't approved the connection. So, I think (but please correct me if I'm wrong) that even if I miss the flight, Delta should rebook me at no extra cost? Taking everything into consideration, though, I don't think I can afford to change the first flight. It'll be a horrendous pain if I do miss the connection, but I won't be out anything except time, & I'm on a grad student budget. But thank you very much!

I flew through ATL on a domestic to international connection in September. I don't remember whether we left from concourse E or F but I didn't have to go through security again. I'd say the biggest time such would be walking from the gate to the train and turn walking to your next gate. The train itself is very fast and seems to run frequently.

A big worry would be if they make you go through a security check to get into E, the International Concourse. http://www.atlanta-airport.com/internationalterminal/, and now handles most international flights. E still does a few, though. I didn't see a checkpoint on Concourse E when I was there a couple of months ago (on a long-haul domestic flight) but the international gates may be cordoned off. As Sara C. says, if you're booked through with Delta and miss your connection in ATL, they'll try to re-route you as best they can. The kiosks have access to the same routing information as the agents, although perhaps a bit less wiggle room for putting you on another carrier, which is sometimes an option. If it looks like there's going to be a delay before you even leave the ground in Birmingham, talk to the gate agent there and see if there's an alternative routing they can come up with. Ask the cabin attendant to confirm your gate in Atlanta when you're on board. (The Delta smartphone app can do a lot of this, as well as providing a QR code in lieu of a boarding pass. It is actually very good.) The train between is fast and regular, and there's not much point in trying to outrun it. Get your bearing when you emerge, walk briskly in that direction. It can be a bit of a trek if you're stuck at the end of the A/B-concourses. Don't get run over by the beep-beep buggies.

Anecdotally, I have rarely had the BHM-ATL leg be delayed at all, and it has comprised of the first leg of probably 90% of air trips I have taken. You'll want to be prepared to have to move fast given the chances of flying into the very end of Concourse A though.

Thank you all so much for your quick & helpful responses! I've marked a few that were especially helpful, but appreciated & have taken note of all of them. (I've also upgraded to Economy Comfort on my first flight, & I'll download the Delta app asap.)