Originally Posted by
bmwe92fan
It all depends on timing -- I've been out the door and in a taxi / bus in 20 minutes -- and recently it has also taken 90. In general I have found NRT arrivals better than HND - but of course YMMV... On our last trip here a few weeks ago we landed right after two huge planes full of Asian tourists where many hadn't done the VJW properly -- so the hallways were clogged and it took a while... I think in the early morning you will be safer and it shouldn't be too bad - especially considering you have no checked bags....
For the benefit of anyone doing an early morning NRT arrival, I thought that I would share my experiences.
My flight (JL726 from Jakarta) touched down at 6:25am and they opened the door at Gate 64 at 6:40am. I made it to the immigration line at 6:48am, after passing the checkpoint where I had to show my "Fast Track" code. The line was pretty long - I counted seven rows of back-and-forth people so I was expecting it to take quite a while. At first, the line was moving very quickly, but then at 7:00am, a few of the inspectors closed their lanes and things slowed considerably. At 7:15, another one or two closed. I finally got to the immigration inspector at about 7:20. where things went pretty quickly with my QR code and biometrics. When I got to customs, there were a few people in line at each of the checkpoints using QR codes. I noticed an inspector opening a new line, but he said that he could only do paper forms. Fortunately, I did a paper form as a backup and I zipped through customs, reaching the outside at 7:27am. I had a pre-purchased ticket for the airport bus to Haneda at 7:35am, and made it with a couple of minutes to spare.
The bus was scheduled to reach HND Terminal 3 at 9:20am but some traffic delayed the arrival until about 9:32am. My flight departure to Chicago was at 10:40am, so I was a bit anxious.
A little closer than I would like to have been, but it worked out in the end. Just in case this can help anyone else...
(My final destination was New York, and the NRT-JFK flight had inventory available in my class of service, but JL refused several times - both in Jakarta and in Tokyo - to change my flight so I could avoid the NRT-HND connection.. I have to confess that when I bought the ticket, I had a shorter transit time in mind, and did not check the bus schedules during the morning rush, so it was my fault. So it goes.)