Late Night HND Arrivals
 

Hey all. My flight from SIN arrives HND at 2300, pretty close to the other medium to long-haul international arrivals. The last trains and buses to the city all leave right around 2400. Are customs, immigration, and bag handling pretty speedy this time of night? I am really hoping to avoid having to pay exorbitant rates for a taxi. Thanks!

Short answer = You should be able to make through immigration, bag pick up and customs in time to catch a train or bus into town. Given the inconvenient hour, you might want to select your hotel based on ease of access from HND.

This is a topic that comes up occasionally, so you might find it helpful to search for threads like this one. (Worth examining for the detail about transportation and for an example of the worst tone to strike in an opening post, too IMHO):

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/japan...-midnight.html

I took that flight in May. No problem. I caught a train before 23:30.

Was your flight early? Or was the process for immigration and bag collection just super efficient at that time of night?

HND is pretty small, there aren't many arrivals at that time of night, and immigration / baggage collection is efficient if you're in C or are an elite.

No, I think it was right on time or even a few minutes late. I didn't check any bags, but my guess is that they are pretty efficient at HND. Depending on where you are going, there are buses that depart as late as 00:30, so you can use that as back-up if the flight is late. There is one to Shibuya at least.

Note that they significantly lowered the price for parking at HND, so that's another option for a shorter trip.

you'll be fine. take the monorail to your transfer station. I got there on the same time frame as you no problem. Got my currency and a pretty little girl took me to the machine to purchase my ticket. Tokyo is hand down the best city in the world :)

Your only problem is getting to the airports...early morning out. The trains dont run and I had to pay literally a triple fare to reach the airport. It cost well in the 70 USD range and I gave the guy 1000 Yen for putting up with my English/Japanese communication barrier. We sat in the cab for 5 minutes trying to explain where/what needed to be done. Lots of "haneda, delta" back and forth and "double double" as in he was telling me it would be very exp...finally i had to show him a couple 10000 yen bills and that got his attention.

I've done plane door to curb in under 5 minutes, don't think it's ever taken more than 15 (20 with checked bags). You should have no problem.