Originally Posted by
ainternational
Indeed, any form of expedited immigration I'd gladly pay for. Although my last few recent visits have yielded 0-3 minute waits, so I cannot complain. Arriving on Japan based carriers seems to help significantly, as does traveling in F/C. It's a real bear though when you arrive right after a UA 747 or 777 fully loaded and backed up. Fortunately that hasn't happened to me lately.
This is all at NRT. How is HND generally? I've rarely flown into HND and don't have many recent datapoints, but will be flying in several times in June and am thus curious.
In the summer I generally arrive from Europe rather than the US and the NRT immigration is always a breeze in the morning. It took me 15 min from gate 46 (as far away as you can get) official arrival time to the limo bus counter last week. I remember looking up and seeing 37 on the clock when I was maybe half way along the long walk and it was 45 when I exited.
HND should be easy but you can catch the tail end of another flight, although the probability should be lower. I have only done it twice. Once there was nobody there. The other time I caught the tail end of a Delta or AA flight and there were ~30 people in the visitor line and fewer inspectors so it looked like it was moving slower than NRT. I went to a resident's agent and processed there instead.