It has been a long time since I have gone through LAX, but in December (yeah, I am getting worried too early) I am flying SYD-LAX-MIA. SYD-LAX is on QF and LAX-MIA is on AA. I have under 3 hours in LAX, 2 hours and 50 minutes if everything is on time. I've been looking at AA1473 on Flightaware lately and it looks like it has been leaving out of TBIT as well as what they list as terminal D, but the airport maps show AA in 4,5,6....so would that be terminal 4? Is there a rhyme and reason for the different terminals used on this flight? And the under 3 hour connection should be doable, right?

As long as you are under the same reservation, you'll be fine. If all goes bad, LAX-MIA is a hub-to-hub flight so there will be another one for you to take.

For what it's worth, a group of us had a 5 hour layover doing SYD-LAX-JFK earlier this year, coming in on American. We made it through customs and were on our merry way in roughly 45 minutes after walking off the plane and had *wayyy* too much time to kill, pretty much wound up over at Panda Express in TBIT exhausted and getting hammered at 7 a.m. slamming back nips. How we made it over to T4 for the JFK flight, I"ll never know.

Panda Express and getting hammered, nice. I haven't had Panda Express now for over 4 years.

My LAX-MIA is under the same booking, so hopefully it goes smoothly. I usually enter via DFW, as I hate LAX.

I flew international into LAX last month, arriving with the morning flights from Australia and NZ. The automated passport control kiosks were all there, but none was working. I spent 1 hour in the line.
I hope the kiosks will be fully functional when you fly there.

You should have no problem. Nearly 3 hours is plenty of time.

If you have to transfer between terminals, TBIT to Terminal 4 is the easiest - they're right next door! It's a very easy walk (for the most part), but if you need to go to any other terminal, take the Intra-Terminal Bus. If you arrive on time, and there are no hassles passing through customs, three hours is more than enough time.

At least you are going in prepared for something that could go wrong - I'm guessing we won't see you on YouTube being led out of the airport screaming hysterically because you missed your connection

csturdiv wrote:

It has been a long time since I have gone through LAX, but in December (yeah, I am getting worried too early) I am flying SYD-LAX-MIA. SYD-LAX is on QF and LAX-MIA is on AA. I have under 3 hours in LAX, 2 hours and 50 minutes if everything is on time. I've been looking at AA1473 on Flightaware lately and it looks like it has been leaving out of TBIT as well as what they list as terminal D, but the airport maps show AA in 4,5,6....so would that be terminal 4? Is there a rhyme and reason for the different terminals used on this flight? And the under 3 hour connection should be doable, right?

If the inbound AA flight is coming from, say MEX or YYZ, it would make sense to me it is at TBIT.

When we flew back from Hawaii a few years ago, we flew HNL-OGG-LAX-OAK. Our inbound flight at OGG was late and had to refuel. We had to sit and wait because the wrong tanks were filled, so that put us farther behind. Some passengers started off having only 45 minutes between flights and ended up missing their DEN and SLC flights. But, us going to OAK still had about 30 minutes. That was DL. IIRC, we went from T-5 to T-4, too.

I would not take any side quests at LAX until you are at your outbound gate.

PSAatSAN4Ever wrote:

If you have to transfer between terminals, TBIT to Terminal 4 is the easiest - they're right next door! It's a very easy walk (for the most part), but if you need to go to any other terminal, take the Intra-Terminal Bus. If you arrive on time, and there are no hassles passing through customs, three hours is more than enough time.

At least you are going in prepared for something that could go wrong - I'm guessing we won't see you on YouTube being led out of the airport screaming hysterically because you missed your connection

Nah, I will be on holiday/vacation. I'll be in mellow mode. No dragging and screaming YouTube videos here.

csturdiv wrote:

PSAatSAN4Ever wrote:

If you have to transfer between terminals, TBIT to Terminal 4 is the easiest - they're right next door! It's a very easy walk (for the most part), but if you need to go to any other terminal, take the Intra-Terminal Bus. If you arrive on time, and there are no hassles passing through customs, three hours is more than enough time.

At least you are going in prepared for something that could go wrong - I'm guessing we won't see you on YouTube being led out of the airport screaming hysterically because you missed your connection

Nah, I will be on holiday/vacation. I'll be in mellow mode. No dragging and screaming YouTube videos here.

Good for you!! Please file a trip report - I'd love to hear about it!!

PSAatSAN4Ever wrote:

csturdiv wrote:

PSAatSAN4Ever wrote:

If you have to transfer between terminals, TBIT to Terminal 4 is the easiest - they're right next door! It's a very easy walk (for the most part), but if you need to go to any other terminal, take the Intra-Terminal Bus. If you arrive on time, and there are no hassles passing through customs, three hours is more than enough time.

At least you are going in prepared for something that could go wrong - I'm guessing we won't see you on YouTube being led out of the airport screaming hysterically because you missed your connection

Nah, I will be on holiday/vacation. I'll be in mellow mode. No dragging and screaming YouTube videos here.

Good for you!! Please file a trip report - I'd love to hear about it!!

I will see if I can do that. Even though I took a lot of writing classes in college, I find it hard to write. I write technical release notes for the product my company develops, which I find hard. And I have a little photo blog site that I post pics to for my family and friends, and I even find that hard to write.

csturdiv wrote:

PSAatSAN4Ever wrote:

csturdiv wrote:

Nah, I will be on holiday/vacation. I'll be in mellow mode. No dragging and screaming YouTube videos here.

Good for you!! Please file a trip report - I'd love to hear about it!!

I will see if I can do that. Even though I took a lot of writing classes in college, I find it hard to write. I write technical release notes for the product my company develops, which I find hard. And I have a little photo blog site that I post pics to for my family and friends, and I even find that hard to write.

No need for a major essay if you don't want to, but please let us all know how the LAX transit goes. It is useful for others.

If you find yourself in T4 with 2 hours to spare (as I suspect you will) you can explore a bit using the tunnels at the lower level near the restaurants in T4 (there are escalators) and walk to T5 or T6. Not all that fascinating but I find I enjoy the exercise between long flights and there are interesting photos on the tunnel walls.

A few years ago, my wife and I had a long layover both directions on DFW-LAX-PHX. On the outbound we took a cab to Westchester for the $20 minimum and walked back. On the return we took a cab to Proud Bird and walked back. Maybe not for everyone but we had lived in another part of Southern California for 20+ years so we had some familiarity.

I would think 3 hours would be ok.

The family and I flew MEL-LAX on QF into TBIT, then LAX-LAS on AA from T4 back in 2014 with a 5 hours layover.

Managed to leave something on the plane which was retrieved for me (jet lag brain kicked in) and even being last through customs, navigating TSA in T4 and a family in tow we still had tons of time for a meal and lots of hangiing about in T4.

As PSAatSAN4Ever said its an easy walk from TBIT to T4 - from memory back then there was a bit of construction to navigate around but still ok to transfer.

WarriorHUT wrote:

I would think 3 hours would be ok.

The family and I flew MEL-LAX on QF into TBIT, then LAX-LAS on AA from T4 back in 2014 with a 5 hours layover.

Managed to leave something on the plane which was retrieved for me (jet lag brain kicked in) and even being last through customs, navigating TSA in T4 and a family in tow we still had tons of time for a meal and lots of hangiing about in T4.

As PSAatSAN4Ever said its an easy walk from TBIT to T4 - from memory back then there was a bit of construction to navigate around but still ok to transfer.

Construction Is done. It's a 30 second walk. Turn right when exiting TBIT. The next door is T4. Going the other way (inside security) the buildings are connected. As an international arrival you will be outside security on the lower level when you exit, so you must go through TSA in T4.