Arriving by plane

So you've reawoken the crumpled mass of flesh and bone that was once called your legs and stumbled off the aircraft – you think it's all over? Alas no. However, this article should make those final weary steps through the airport that bit less difficult. See At the airport for an in-depth guide to airports.

Be patient when disembarking. Use the time to look through your seat twice for all your belongings. Check the seat pocket, between the seats, along the window (if applicable) and around the floor under and in front of your seat. Remember to check the relevant overhead compartments for any carry-on luggage.

Always make sure you have all your stuff before you say goodbye to your seat. After you exit the aircraft, it is difficult, if not impossible, to get back inside. It may take weeks or months to recover missing belongings from the airline's lost and found desk.

If you have check-in baggage, you will probably need to wait at the baggage claim anyway.

If you arrive at a major airport, there is good and bad news. The good news is that you can hope to exit the plane through a jet bridge, without the discomfort of going outdoors in strange weather and climbing down a staircase onto the tarmac. The bad news is that you probably have a lot of walking before you.

If you've flown internationally, before clearing customs, you might have a chance to do duty free shopping. Take note in that article of the benefits and risks.

Immigration (or passport control) is the process of legally entering a country.

In the best-case scenario — such as when travelling within a border-free area like the Schengen Zone, or if you hold a valid residence permit — your immigration process may be smooth. It may be facilitated with automated border gates, where you insert your passport into a scanner and look at a camera, and then a screen tells you "Go" and the gate opens.

But in other cases (for example the United States for all foreign passport holders), you will have to be interviewed by an immigration officer. At a minimum, the officer will ask you questions like, "What is the purpose of your visit?", "How long are you staying?", and "Where are you staying?" The list of questions may be long, and your documents may be carefully inspected for things such as entry or exit stamps from countries hostile to the country you are attempting to enter. In general, holders of passports that require a visa to enter the country are questioned longer than those who don't.

If several international flights arrive around the same time, the lines can become long, though the process is generally well-organized. Always have your passport and any required visas ready, and follow all instructions carefully. If you are entering on the basis of eligibility for a "visa on arrival", expect to pay for the entry visa at the border checkpoint, which can also lead to delays. Make sure you have accepted means of payment, which varies across countries.

Photography or videorecording in immigration areas is strictly prohibited. You will usually be processed through immigration inspection as a household unit, meaning a family, couple, or individual. Wait behind the marked line until you're called over by the next available immigration officer.

After immigration, you’ll proceed to baggage claim. If you have checked luggage, you will have to wait for it to appear, while persons who only have carry-on luggage will keep walking. Once you have your bags, you’ll pass through customs, where officials check for restricted or dutiable items.

Many airports have a line for "nothing to declare" and a line for "items to declare". Some countries require all bags to go through an X-ray scanner, and then question only those persons whose baggage looks funny. Others merely have customs officers closely watch all persons walking through the "nothing to declare" line and pull out anyone who looks nervous to see if they are carrying contraband or dutiable goods. Sometimes they have a sniffer dog to find narcotics or other forbidden goods.

At baggage claim (aka reclaim), many bags look similar. Find the marks, name tags, airline baggage routing tags, or straps that distinguish your bag(s) from others. Then match the tags the airline attached to them to the claim check stubs given to you at check-in, to ensure that it is your luggage. Ribbons, stickers and colored straps on your luggage can help identify it, and ensure that someone else doesn't accidentally walk off with it. See Flight baggage – Preventing and recovering lost baggage for more.

If you checked a very large or long item, you may find it in the special claim area instead of the regular baggage claim.

If your luggage doesn't emerge at a baggage claim position (usually assigned by the airline) after some reasonable time, go to the designated lost luggage counters immediately to ask about it. At many airports, each airline traditionally operates its own luggage services office. At several airports where DNATA (Dubai National Air Travel Agency) is the primary ground services provider, they operate a centralized luggage services office on behalf of multiple airlines.

Be sure to have ready the airline luggage claim check stub for your missing luggage that you received at check-in. Sometimes, if you checked in too early and the airline flies that route multiple times per day, the airline may send your bags ahead on an earlier flight. If your baggage is not quickly located, be ready to describe what your luggage looks like with as much detail as possible (include colors of the tags/markings/luggage, and especially name tags you applied and printed itineraries inside) to the staff at the counter. (A photograph helps considerably, especially if you face any language barrier.) If still missing after adequate search, file a written claim for it.

Make this claim before you leave the airport.

In most countries, the airline has the responsibility for delivering any misplaced or lost checked luggage to you once it has been found – not just to the airport where it was first discovered missing, but to you during your travels or at home. By placing a copy of your itinerary (with dates and specific places you'll stay, e.g., hotels) in each piece of checked luggage, you greatly enhance the probability of receiving it while on your trip.

If you believe that you left something on board the aircraft, check with the airline's gate agent if you are still airside. If they cannot assist you, proceed to the designated counter/booth/office at the airport that deals with lost items. Returning to the aircraft yourself is normally not allowed after you exit the aircraft and enter the terminal.

Your trip may involve an onward flight. You'll need to make the connection, perhaps after immigration/customs processing, and after waiting for your checked bags. In any event, you'll have to reach the gate for your next flight. In the worst case, you may have to go outside the secure area (e.g., for immigration/customs), or your connection may involve going to a different terminal...very occasionally a different airport. And if you have mobility needs, let the gate agent know promptly as you get off your flight or contact your airline for more info as you book your flight. These are some of the reasons your flight arrangements must provide enough time to make connections.

Details of making a connection include:

Knowing the local time. All data about your next flight will be based on it. When your journey involves multiple time zones, the flight purser will usually announce the local time at your port-of-arrival. The local time at your destination is also available from the flight path/airshow channel of your in-flight entertainment system if your flight is equipped with it. You might want to adjust your watch and mobile phones (if it's not changed automatically) to the time announced to avoid confusion with the timetables at the airport.

Check if you have a boarding pass for your next flight. If you don't, you are not considered checked-in for that flight yet, so proceed to a transfer desk immediately to obtain a boarding pass for your next flight. You can avoid this by checking-in online and printing the boarding passes or downloading an electronic version of them to your phone, if your carrier offers these.

Even if a gate number is printed on your onward flight's boarding card, it is possible that the connecting flight's gate assignment may change. Thus, please check the flight monitors scattered around the terminal immediately after you land to get the latest gate information.

As above, if you came from an international flight and are continuing on to a domestic flight, you will need to clear immigration/customs. If so, you may also have to claim your checked luggage (even if it is checked-through to your final destination) and re-check it to ensure its loading into your next flight. (Facilities in modern international airports are designed to make this as easy as possible, e.g., if you checked-through your luggage to your final destination, you may see a special lane where you can claim and re-check your luggage without going to the main departure hall.)

If your connecting flight was booked separately or with a different airline that does not have any partnership with the airline that operated your first flight, your baggage will have to be collected at the intermediate stopover and re-checked by you, possibly in a different terminal, for loading onto the next flight. This may require you to exit the secure area, re-check bags, then go through the personal security check en route to your gate. You may need to get a regular visit visa (as opposed to a transit visa which restricts movement to the airside/secure part of the airport) for the country you are 'transiting' at. Furthermore, you will also be subject to other rules of your transit country (proper transit passengers are generally exempt from the onerous quarantine rules of the country of transit as long as they do not need to exit the transit area). All that can demand considerable time and money – even much of a day or so if you must transfer to another airport. Book (or accept) such arrangements only as a last resort (e.g. if your original carrier's interline partners do not fly to your final destination). If you book your flights separately, then you might also not be entitled to protection, compensation, and assistance that comes with missing your supposedly connecting flight due to a delay with the first flight. Check to see if the airlines involved in your journey have interline ticketing agreements with each other before booking, it may be cheaper to book them together and bags will be transferred automatically.

Depending on the airport or airline, you will have to either stay in the aircraft, wait in a transit or holding area, or choose between the aforementioned options.

If you are asked or choose to stay in the aircraft, remain seated to enable the ground staff to clean the aircraft more quickly.

If you are asked to stay at the transit area and allowed to explore the airport, don't stray too far from the gate, especially if the terminal is big, as you may miss important announcements about your flight. Some of these announcements may be broadcast only at the gate area and not to the entire airport. The ground time of an aircraft is usually less than 2 hours, which may not be enough time to familiarize yourself with a big terminal.

In this case, there are 4 main scenarios on when you clear customs and immigration.

In some countries like the United States and China, you will have to get off at your first stop in-country and pass through their customs and immigration there before continuing to your final destination, e.g., if your flight is from Los Angeles to Shanghai via Beijing, you will have to get off at Beijing to pass through customs and immigration.

In other countries such as Australia and Japan, you may pass through customs and immigration only at your final destination, e.g., if your flight is from Hong Kong to Adelaide via Melbourne on the same plane, you may disembark only into the sterile/holding area at Melbourne and go through customs and immigration at Adelaide).

In some cases such as the United Kingdom and EU member states in the Schengen Area, you get off at the first stop in-country or in the Schengen Area for immigration inspection, but you won't need to collect your checked luggage at this point. You will only collect your bags at your final destination and customs inspection will take place there. For example, on a flight from New York City to Edinburgh via London, you will disembark at London and go through the immigration counters set aside for international-to-domestic transfer passengers. You will then end up in the domestic section of the airport and take your flight to Edinburgh, where you collect your bags and go through customs formalities.

For flights with a mere re-fueling stopover (e.g. Philippine Airlines flights from the US west coast to Manila via Honolulu/Guam), you will be asked to stay in the aircraft and not allowed to disembark.

Make sure you follow instructions carefully and ask the airline staff if in doubt about anything. If you leave the secure/sterile/holding area when you're not supposed to, it can be very difficult to get back in.

Most airports have shops and exchange offices in the arrival hall, for getting food, supplies, or money, without the trouble of bringing it onto the flight or over the customs border.

If you are fortunate to be welcomed by friends, a cab driver or someone else, you will meet them in the arrival hall. Be patient; visitors cannot go airside.

Transport opportunities at the airport can differ a lot, and might be confusing. Try to plan your transport to the final destination before you leave the airport. Common options are public transportation, bus, taxi, or rental car. Some of these options might be aggressively touted. Increasingly, airports also have high speed rail stations and they may be separate from normal or urban rail stations, so you should look up a plan of the airport before heading to the wrong station and missing your train.

If the airport is large enough to have enclosed jet bridges, you have walked through air-conditioned indoor space until now. At the exit door, you will breathe your first outdoor air since you entered your departure airport. Be prepared to step into hot or cold weather, dry or wet, depending on your destination and the time of year. At major airports, taxi ranks, train stations, and rental car parking garages are often enclosed, so you will only be exposed to the local weather once you reach your final destination.

As the arrival hall is typically open to the public, passengers might be overwhelmed by touts. Crime risk might be higher than airside. In certain developing countries such as Mexico, arriving international passengers are often required to walk through a hall set aside for touts selling tours and timeshares in order to exit from airside to landside.

Long walks at the departure airport, followed by a sedentary flight, and long walks under stress at arrival, can give discomfort to anyone, especially feet and legs. You'd best pace yourself, and if you find a seat you might rest 1–2 minutes. Perhaps more importantly, if you have a flight of several hours, you should have consulted friends or done research about how to rest/sleep and avoid jet lag.