Originally Posted by
pmarius
It depends. If your domestic flight is operated as an international flight, you don't even go through immigration at GRU.
It's very simple to verify if that is the case. Every international flight at TAM starts with an 8, so if the GRU-GIG flight is styled as JJ 8XXX, you will only need to go through immigration and customs at GIG. If your GRU-GIG flight is JJ 3XXX, then you will need to have everything done at GRU
Great hint, thanks. Unfortunately my GIG-GRU flight is JJ3686, so I'll have to pick up my luggage and go through customs.
JJ 3686 appears to be simply a GRU-GIG flight.
http://pt.flightaware.com/live/flight/TAM3686 Really short flight.
When you exit your first flight, there will be attendants directing people to international connections, etc. You can show them your itinerary, but I agree they'll likely just tell you to proceed to the area for immigration, etc. with most of the other passengers.
Your bags should still be tagged GIG (Rio international), so you won't have to pay domestic flight baggage fees for GRU-GIG. You'll go through Immigration, wait for your bags at a baggage carousel (then shop in the duty free store if you like; you can do this upon arrival and departure), then go through Customs (don't even need to fill out a form anymore if you don't have anything to declare, though you could still get pulled aside for inspection), then exit security and walk almost straight ahead to the transit desk (one line for TAM, one for Gol, last I saw), show your second boarding pass or printed itinerary and your bags, then go upstairs, past the check-in counters, and go to the entrance for domestic flights, go through security and proceed to your gate. If the transit desk is somehow not operating, go upstairs to the TAM check-in counters.