Steve M

He does not say whether he will check bags. I think it's reasonable to assume that he will, as do the vast majority of passengers departing NRT. I will re-iterate that for some airlines, such as UA, there's a strict 60-minute deadline for checked bags. That means a razor-thin margin for a train arrival at 75 minutes prior to departure. A bus scheduled for that arrival could easily be 15 minutes late due to traffic, so I think that's too close for a bus. So maybe 90 minutes before departure would be a reasonable for a train arrival, and maybe 105 minutes for a bus. Anything less and you risk missing the bag check-in deadline, at least for UA and any other carriers that have a 60-minute deadline.

evergrn

Everything is indeed very efficient at NRT. But, assuming you're checking bags, I'd say 25min best-case scenario from train platform to airside past passport controls. 1hr worst-case. I usually fly Y trans-Pacific and like to be at the gate no more than 10min past boarding time, but that's just me. Sometimes they start boarding early and I'd hate to risk not having overhead bin space near my seat. If I arrive 2hr before departure, I find that it's it's plenty relaxed but still doesn't give me too much spare time for shopping and eating.

abmj-jr

Any extra time is useful for a nice glass of wine and a snack in the airline's executive lounge.

5khours

Total waste of time. (IMHO)

Worst case, I would say. I've done downtown Roppongi to the gate in 55 minutes.


If you are at the check in counter 30 minutes prior to your flight (checked bags or not), you will get on the flight.

Need

No I was at the correct airline counter. It was Asiana and flight was OZ101 from NRT to ICN. It was a 12:30pm flight and counter did not open until after 10am.

mkjr

I found that drinking some 17 year old Hibiki at the jal Sakura lounge seemed to pass the time rather quickly. Upstairs bar only...and some 12 year old yamazaki too...

TrojanHorse

Are there good places to eat one final dinner in at NRT? We have a 6:20 p.m. flight so I presume we would leave Tokyo at ~2 ish (not sure what time the hotels kick you out on checkout day) and get to NRT, hit the F Class lounge and also grab a bite to eat at NRT.

evergrn

Restaurants at NRT (I'm more familiar with the ones in T1) range from average to mediocre. While I still enjoy eating at NRT, you won't find anything mind-blowing there. If you're looking for one last memorable meal in Tokyo before your 6.20pm flight, then I'd suggest you do that in Tokyo.

mjm

I agree with this. If you are flying in F, eating a great lunch in town would afford you the chance for a great local meal and also the chance to nosh on F stuff. Every 13 y.o. and 15 y.o. loves airplane food for some bizarre reason. Airport food is best left for delays and trips you absolutely have to take in economy class.

gnaget

5K is spot on here. Unless you want to hang out in the lounge then 1 hr is enough, although I usually targeted like 1 hour 20 so that I could go to the lounge for ~30 min. I have no idea about checked bag policy since I only did it once in conjunction with leaving the country.

Also the bus schedules are extremely padded so you will typically arrive 30 min ahead of schedule. The exception is from TCAT; there the transit time is pretty accurate and I think the driver has driving slowly to be right on schedule.

Although once at HND we were flying to HKG on ANA in business and we had to buy a connection because the non-stop only had a few seats full C booking class. So we arrived just around 40 min before the non-stop (1 hour before our flight) and we asked them about changing to the non-stop. I realized chances were small because of general rules and not wanting to bend them. But then the first reason that we couldn't change was because it was inside the 40 min window.

Has anyone dropped bags with UA within the 60 minute window? 5K?

p.s. There is never a wait of more than a couple of minutes at security at NRT but there might be a ~10-15 minute wait at emigration during the worst times. Then you will see ANA staff with signs helping people cut the line.

TrojanHorse

I agree a good lunch will definitely close out the trip in Tokyo. However these two kids seem to be eating every 3 hours. So they will want something before boarding the plane. I figure a light dinner at NRT will suffice until the meal on the plane arrives.

We will be flying AA back to the states, is there a recommendation for a restaurant in NRT near the AA gates?

MSPeconomist

OP has only indicated the carrier and route without mentioning whether bags need to be checked and whether Op is confirmed in a premium cabin or has elite status.

Before asking or answering such questions, one should always check the rules for the particular airline that is operating the flight. It's not unusual to have a one hour strict deadline to check in or check bags for international flights.

jib71

No really good restaurant air-side in T2. If you have to eat air-side in T2 I would probably suggest having a donburi (rice bowl) at Blue Sky Miso or Asian Cafe Bowl Bowl.
http://www.narita-airport.jp/en/shop...arch_rest.html

Expect the food to be ... foodcourt food
http://royal-ahf.jp/detail.php?id=4#foodcourt

Better would be to buy some sushi from the landside sushi restaurants and carry it through to the gates. Better still would be to eat and then go through security.

Oreto

I'll add some hard numbers to give the OP what my last experience in T2 was like.

I left Yokohama on a Monday and arrived at NRT T2 on Keisei at ~08:06. I sauntered up the escalator and over to the JAL check-in. There was no wait at 08:15 so I was able to check-in for Business class and obtain my boarding pass to CAN with no issue even checking my bag. All in all, that process took 4 minutes. Security and passport control took a combined 26 minutes with 14 of that for security. About 80% of these minutes were spent in queue.

At 08:54, I entered the Sakura lounge for what I had hoped to be only 25 minutes but I got distracted while on my tablet and had to run all the way to my gate in the satellite building with ~2 minutes to spare for my 09:30 flight. Those were 7 highly stressful minutes but now mostly a cathartic non sequitur.

The moral of the story is that I left Yokohama about 3.5 hours before my flight, took a slower yet cheaper train combo into NRT (N*Ex would have saved me an additional 30 minutes or so) and still had 45 minutes to spend in the Sakura lounge.

Deducting the 30 minute penalty for taking the cheaper option and assuming all else remains similar, I figure that I could have left Yokohama that day T-3 hours and had no issues while still having checked my bag. Technically it would be 2.85 hours as that is the closest that N*Ex could get to the time that would allow a checked bag at T-60.

I'm not saying that I recommend this course of action but this is what I did recently. With just hand luggage, I can see the 1 hour estimates given by some to be viable as pertaining to the arrival at NRT. That, of course, doesn't take into account the travel time between NRT and the point of origin.

TrojanHorse

thanks, I think the sushi is a good call too and the prices don't look to bad for an airport at the Asian Cafe Bowl

edited to say STARBUCK's!!!! LOL.. also, a bit off topic but are there SBUX throughout Tokyo?