Next up was the longest part of the trip, the flight from LAX to Manila.
In my admittedly limited experience, it is difficult to get a flight from Florida to Asia without one or more long layovers somewhere. This time I had no long layovers but the time between flights in Manila seemed like it might be cutting it a little close at a little under 3 hours.
Getting ready to board the flight to Manila
The Manila airport used to have a reputation of being one of the worst airports in the world. I understand it has improved quite a bit in recent years due in part to the remodeling of Terminal 1. It really isn't that bad but if you have never been there and don't do much international traveling, it can be little intimidating. The worst part of this airport is the fact that its 5 terminals are separated from one another such that ground transportation is required to get between them. If your final destination is Manila then it doesn't really matter. If not, you'll probably be changing terminals.
The LA to Manila flight is around 12.5 hours long and arrives at Terminal 1. If you have a domestic connecting flight, then you will be transferring to Terminal 2 to catch it after going through immigration, baggage claim and customs. The best way to get there is the shuttle bus that runs every 15 minutes are so and you can inquire at the domestic transfer desk along the wall to your right near the exit.
The challenge for me was the short layover time of a little over 2 hours. Sometimes this is plenty of time, in this case it wasn't. There were a couple of issues. First, my flight was scheduled to arrive at 4:30 which is apparently when the Manila airport opens and the first flights of the day can land. Airlines try to time their arrival at around that time. Unsurprisingly, this can lead to delays. If you are there first, great. If not, expect to land later. In our case we ended up landing a little after 5am instead of 4:30.
This leads directly to the next problem. Because we were not the first to arrive and there were multiple arrivals around that time, the line for immigration was very long by the time I got there. By the time I made it past immigration, my next flight was already boarding and there was no way to make it.
The mass of people trying to get through immigration in Manila
As you can imagine, I was really stressed at this point. Fortunately, the people at the transfer desk were very friendly and helpful and were able to get me on the next flight and get my boarding passes so I wouldn't have to deal with another line in the next terminal which I wouldn't have had time for. Unfortunately, this meant an extra hop but the flights were close together and I ended up at my destination only a few hours later.
On the shuttle bus from Terminal 1 to Terminal 2
Posted using Partiko Android
Beat of luck! LAX is like a zoo at times.