The minimum amount of time to get from one flight to another varies around the world and from airport to airport.

Here in South Africa, no-one knows better than we (GSO) do when it comes to minimum connection times when arriving off international flights and connecting immediately to regional and domestic destinations.

We would like to highlight the following to ensure that your guests have a smooth experience when passing through OR Tambo International Airport:

Although the standard connection time at OR Tambo from an international flight to a regional/domestic flight is 2 hours, we firmly recommend between 2 and 3 hours.

The extra hour for your guest could mean the difference of NOT missing their connecting flight – this creates a less stressful situation for your guest.

In addition, there are other benefits of not missing a connection flight:

Your guests will not have to purchase new airtickets for another flight or another airline on their intended route.

Your guests will not be separated from their luggage, if their checked through luggage made it onto the connection flight.

Your guests will not have to pay for overnight hotel accommodation should there be no later connection flights available on that day.

Your guests’ itinerary will not be negatively affected – they will not lose out on prepaid travel arrangements.

NOTE:  While all the above are important considerations, we would like to share with you the real impact of missing connecting flights.

It is the impact on your guests.  We have seen for ourselves the immense stress that tight connection times have on travellers.  Stress, anger, upset and even tears are difficult for the GSO team to witness.  We feel heavy-hearted on behalf of the guests.  We do everything in our power

to help them, but there are limits to the miracles that we can perform.

Consider this:  Even if your guests want to opt for a tighter connection time because they don’t want to ‘wait’ unnecessarily longer, think of the above consequences, and help your guest to understand what is in their best interests.

Thank You

The GSO Team