I'm a frequent flyer, however this will be my first time not taking a direct flight to my final US destination from Europe.
My question is: Do I have to retrieve my luggage and check-in again for a connecting flight when arriving at my first port of entry into the United States???

just to clarify, i have purchased the following ticket from Milan to L.A. and my itinerary is the following MXP -> JFK -> LAX.
JFK would be my first port of entry in the US, although my real destination is LAX. It would be very worrying if I had to retrieve my baggage and re-check it in order to catch my connecting flight to los angeles (same carrier). not to mention that the connecting time is already tight enough. Moreover I assume that minimum connection times published by us carriers for Interantional to domestic connections do not take into account the time necessary to clear immigration (I understand that this would need to be cleared too at my first port of entry into the US).
can anyone help me out with this??? @:-)

Thank you soo much in advance

It's not that bad. You will be shepherded through an arrival hall at JFK where you have to pull your bag off the belt. Give the customs person your blue form declaring any gifts you intend to leave in the USA. Then just after Customs will be another belt where you drop off your bag again (if it already is tagged to your real destination).

When you check in your bag in Milan, be persistent and try to get it through-tagged to LAX; but Alitalia sometimes won't do that if you are on two different carriers. No problem... just talk to any agent after Customs and they will replace your bag-tag.

Yes, they do allow enough time for this process if you have booked a normal connection. But normal rules apply; always carry one day's worth of emergency provisions in your carry-on, and put multiple tags on your bag with your destination contact address and mobile number.

Thank heavens you're not connecting through IAD... it still works at Dulles, but they are so rude there it takes some of the fun out of the trip.

Once you arrive in LAX there are no more formalities.

even if my flight from milan did actually arrive on time (which i'm personally not too confident about), i would still only have 90 mins to:

leave the plane;
fetch my bag;
clear immigration (I can't imagine the line for going through the process);
re-drop my bag after having cleared immigration;
go through security (I assume there would be a TSA checkpoint of some sort);
and finally get to the gate..,,,,,to catch my connecting flight to LAX (if still there)


would that really be feasible???

You will let us know when you go through, right?

Assuming there's a later flight, and assuming there's space on that flight, you'll be put on that flight.

If you get to JFK on time, it'll be a bit tight, but you should be fine. You're flying DL, right? You didn't say when you're flying, but the latest you'll get to JFK is before 2 PM. There are 3 flights leaving after 2 PM, you'll make it onto one of those (unless weather strikes and they have no seats).

If they dont have seats on direct flights, suggest the following routings:
jfk-atl-lax
jfk-tpa-lax
jfk-slc-lax
jfk-cvg-lax
jfk-san-lax

I'm sure it won't come to that.



Good luck and let us know how it goes.

I do not mean to be impolite but, does this look like cross posting to you? if you had read carefully the questions are quite different in the substance, and infact you havent really answered to the on i've quoted (claimed to be "post-duplicating").

besides i really can't find three flights past 2 pm (i would be arriving at 2.55pm, and yes all same carrier. should have booked with Continental!), delta websites only returns 2 direct flights (one of which is the one i have scheduled already, that leaves just 1 safety option for the day), if i were to lose it, i would only have to hope that free seats were left for the last flight, which would be arriving in LAX at 11.41pm ridiculous late anyway (still needing to pick up a car at the car rent, a driving all the way to the hotel which might have cancelled my booking by that time). there would be one other non-direct flight leaving from jfk for lax, but that would be just the same departure time as the one scheduler already (so not of any use...)

I'm not sure what the lost connecting flight ratio is for passengers flying this delta route, but knowing all the hassles involved (bag pick-up and re-drop off and immigration) delta really should stop selling these. It takes way to much luck get through the whole journey according to plans. When flying Thai or through asia they actually take care about these kind of things why does it seem that delta can't care less

I agree that unless your inbound flight is delayed, you should make it. I'm, not sure what DL's minimum connection time is, but they do take into account the time to clear customs. If 90 minutes were below the threshhold, they wouldn't have let you book it.

I see flights at 4:20p, 6:40p, 9:00p most days. If you don't see one of those, it may be sold out on your day of travel, but that does not mean that if you misconnect, that you might not be able to get on it anyway. Even sold out flights sometimes accomodate standbys (due to no-shows), and misconnecting passengers are usually at the top of the list.

In any case, there doesn't seem to be much to do about it now. Your connection time is what it is. So plan ahead, but try not to stress too much.

US hotels will keep your hotel reservations past midnight, assuming you held it with a credit card. Still, if you do find yourself rebooked such that you won't arrive until that late, it's not a bad idea to call the hotel while you're waiting around JFK and let them know that you will be arriving very late.

Edit to add: if running that late, call the rental car company too.

I won't argue with you on cross-posting, I'll let mods deal with that.


If you do miss your 4:xx PM flight, you'll still be able to do everything you need if you're accomodated on the 6:xx PM flight. Find out when your car rental place closes and see if you may have to go there first before getting your luggage when you arrive at LAX.

However, you also have an option of taking a connecting flight through CVG, ATL, SLC and SAN. I'd look at weather to see which is better. ATL is always a good bet, as they have nearly hourly flights to LAX.

The upside to coming in later is that you'll probably have an easier time getting to your hotel (depending on where it is and what day you're flying in).

For anyone who may be interested in this, as a brief update, i have rang up a Delta rep, and she gladly confirmed the Minimum Connection Time for Int-Domestic at JFK T3 being 105' mins, amusingly enough, she ASSUMED that my transfer SHOULD be fine (in one way or another, literally using these words) given that Delta actually sells this itinerary. The most correct translation of her answer from italian should sound something like:
"well if we sell it, someone must have thought about it before you...."

oh moreover, i dared to ask her if someone from delta would actually be there to escort us from our arrivals gate, through the whole process, right to our connecting flight.... how fool of me to even consider this option...
( yes, i'm travelling with kids and yes, someone has assisted us quite a few times with tight connection times on other airlines or on totally different planets maybe..)


By the way, i got an email from my travel agent informing me that my connecting time at JFK just got shortened by another 5 mins, so now it would be 85'.... great!

why on earth does this sound so ridiculous to me.. is it just me?

I had so many options for this journey, that i'm really looking forward to, for some stupid reason i picked delta, never again (LH, BA, AF, LX, VS, KL..) and ...it appears they do not even have ptvs.. right back from the future

will be definitely reviewing this on skytrax, can't wait to see how bad it eventually gets to travel with them, or if i just have to prove myself wrong....

no wonder they have been on the verge of bankruptcy..... and have teamed up with alitalia, aeroflot, china southern and aero mexico in skyteam...
can anyone spot what all the carriers i have mentioned have in common? not knowing what customer care is all about and not being able to care less about their customers!