Just came back from SYD last month. It's a twice a year trip for us for the past several, so we've lived through the "Joe vs the volcano" hallway many times.

Luckily, the construction is done, and you take a different pathway than through the bowels of LAX - not that it's much shorter though.

After immigration, baggage which I've had to wait on with GE passthrough. Then customs (where I get detoured to clear a Carnet). Then bag drop which used to be alot simpler, is now a mess of confusion...especially after dropping off the first 7 bags and then being told that the last one is oversized and needs to be dropped off over there...no, not here, back there...against the mob of crowd moving forward.

Then you walk out a no doors, doorway (one way and only path) and you are now back in general population, just inside the terminal. A step outside, walk two terminals down and go through security...as if you just got out of a cab...to your domestic connection. Luckily, they do have TSA pre which is usually alot shorter than general.