Navigating Vancouver Airport?

steel_spine

Hello,

I've a flight booked with ebookers from London-Auckland. I get my connecting flight in Vancouver airport.
I've just found out that the first airline (Virgin) won't through-check my baggage, and the connecting airline (Air NZ) won't allow me to checkin online, nor do they have self-service kiosks in Vancouver it seems.
This leaves me very concerned about my connection time of 2hrs 20 mins, in which i have to go through customs twice and collect my bags, before checking in to Air NZ 90 minutes before flight departure.
Ebookers are assuring me that this will be plenty of time, but I don't know.
Can anyone comment on the feasibility of this before I fork out 150EU to change flights to he next day?

ciaran12

The minimum connection time given here is 1h 20m:
http://www.aircanada.com/en/travelinfo/airport/connectiontimes.html#faq:5-*

So you should be okay, and I think if you do fail to make the connecting flight then the airline should take responsibility, since you've allowed appropriate stopover time yourself. (this is what lufthansa told me when I had a short international stopover in Frankfurt previously)

I'd contact the airline with whom you'll be arriving in Vancouver and chat to them about it rather than ebookers

circular flexing

This is a handy guide

http://www.yvr.ca/en/navigating-yvr/passenger-guides/connecting-through-yvr.aspx

I'd be surprised if Virgin don't check your bags through given that Air NZ are a partner airline of theirs. Did you ring Virgin to check?

If your bags don't get checked through then I would say it could be tight. The lines at immigration at Vancouver can be quite long at peak times.

ash2008

Usually, when you check in for your first flight, they will check you into all the onward flights (as in you will get your two boarding passes)- just sounds like they are not checking your baggage through.
I've only ever had Vancouver airport as a final destination, but I have connected through Toronto and have had to pick up my bags and take it to the next flight myself. Maybe its a Canadian thing?

Anyway, I got checked through to the next flight, so I just picked up the bags in Toronto and went to baggage drop. That way you don't need to worry about getting to the Air NZ check-in desk with 90mins to spare.

I'm also not sure if you will need to do customs twice...pretty sure you pick your bags up at a different place than the people who are leaving the airline completely. But my memory of that trip though Toronto is foggy on those details, so not 100% on that.
I do remember worrying about picking up my bags, but I ended up having plenty of time to spare and Vancouver is a much smaller airport that Toronto. It's actually quite nice and easy to navigate through.

Perhaps call Virgin to check if they plan to check you through all the way to NZ. Pretty sure they will, in which case you have plenty time.

Bogwoppit

I've only ever caught domestic flights when landing in Vancouver, immigration can take a little while but if you have your boarding pass then I'd say you'll have enough time.
The only problem will be if you are delayed at all on the virgin flight.