Originally Posted by moondog
I'm proud to proclaim that my average seat-to-curb time is less than 15 minutes. The secret is getting out of the plane quickly and winning the race to the immigration counters. Of course, it helps that my normal flight (UA857) usually arrives at a time when other inbound traffic is light.
Yup, that's the key, IME. You have plenty of room to overtake your competition once you get off the plane.
AA 289 arrives at a less busy time than UA's ORD flight and I have seen the immigration lines empty and I have waited for nearly 40 minutes. It depends. Qatar Airways has a flight that, at least some days a week, arrives around the same time as AA -- those pax seem to take a long time to process. Lufthansa's Munich flight (A340-600) also arrives around the same time. As my flight is taxiing-in, I always scan the parked aircraft to see who's in an who's not. My tip -- look for planes with luggage coming off -- they are your competition.
Same goes if you connect through NRT and take the evening JL flight. Can be busy or empty and a few minutes one way or the other makes all the difference.
Personally, if I was connecting to another city in China, I would see if I could connect in NRT or HKG as opposed to PVG. It's a much easier process.