Unless the Singapore flight comes in early, there is a very real chance that you'll miss your Sapporo flight. There will be JAL staff at the arrival gate to advise you and let you know. If you miss it, they will rebook you to the next flight.

I flew JL34 BKK-HND a few days ago. The flight landed early at approx 5:30am and I got to Immigration about 10min later. The queue for foreign visitors was very long. There are approx 25 booths in the immigration hall - three of which were manned. At 6am another three immigration agents showed up for duty and at 7am they opened another couple of desks. It took me over 1h30min to get through, a very annoying experience. Why can't the Japan Immigration authority have more people working earlier when they know lots of flights are arriving.

Any tips what time of day would likely be a quicker experience to get through Japan Immigration? Thanks.

Your flight was 50 minutes early that day. Likely others also arrived early, before immigration was ready to process the passengers.

Japan now offers a TTP program. It takes a while to get approved. Google it and you will see blogs about it. Good luck.

You can also apply for an APEC card which only works for business travel and may take some time to get. Both TPP and APEC though primarily help you in the major airports like HND and NRT.

I've come in on AA169 (LAX-HND) that's scheduled for a 0445 arrival, usually a couple of Immigration agents in place and they usually get more 5 0r 10 open in a couple of minutes.
Biggest help is getting your Visit Japan virtual paperwork done before you get to Japan, I'm usually through Immigration in just over a minute or so, usually caused by the fingerprint reader or the camera just waking up in the morning. Biggest delay using the website and QR codes is waiting for the bags to come out before Customs. I've seen Customs not having the e-gates open but if you've got the QR code they've always just waved me though the manual ones if the e-gates haven't opened yet.

Posting here instead of creating a new thread even though my situation isn’t a connection or layover and hope someone can help.

I’m ticketed to fly JFK-HND-JFK but I might need to go to the Philippines for a few days while I’m there. Rather than call ANA and get everything on 1 booking I thought about just using ANA points to book a separate NRT-MNL-NRT ticket.

Is that going to be an issue entering or leaving Japan? Will I need to have 2 separate trips registered on Visit Japan Web? I know this isn’t the ANA forum but will that cause any issues with my JKF-HND-JFK ticket?

With my one time experience with Japan immigration I was not asked to show return ticket and I entered on single entry visa on two separate tickets. Entered MAA-SIN-HND exited HND-HNL.

I had similar doubt and didn’t submitted visit Japan form and didn’t see much time difference for immigration

No issues at all, but you will need to make a visit Japan registration for each trip, as you will enter Japan twice. You need to register your entry from the JFK flight, you will then be registered as having left Japan from Narita, and will need a new entry registered when you come back from Manila, and eventually will be registered as having left when you fly to JFK. But you don't need to have both trips registered when you enter from New York.

Have a question about checked luggage and international transfer at HND.

My family and I will be flying on two separately purchased tickets to travel to the US this summer:

1. PVG - HND (NH)
2. HND - JFK - CLE (AA)

With this itinerary, I'm expecting that I'll have to manually collect and re-check the luggage for the AA flight; this itinerary has a 4-hour layover which I think should be enough time to handle everything. My question is this: while I (US passport) have visa-free entry to go through immigration and collect the luggage, my wife (CN passport) does not. Will they allow me to go through and check my wife's luggage on the AA flight with her not physically present at the check-in desk? I understand there is airside check-in, but then we won't have the checked luggage with us.

Or am I thinking too much about this, and there's an easier way (would checking luggage through even be possible?)

Flights from PVG are notoriously delayed. Maybe not so much the morning flights, but it is an added risk that I'd worry about with only 4 hours between flights.

ANA will in all likelihood not check luggage through to AA on separate tickets.

If you have no more luggage than can be assigned to one passenger, you can probably ask to do separate check in, but if you want to utilise the allowance of your wife's ticket, I think they would want to have her there for ID validation. Honestly, I think this is a recipe for failure. Too many things can go wrong. Why not try to get a JAL flight from PVG, they can check luggage through to AA, or a United flight from Haneda.

In theory, you could apply for a transit visa to enable your wife to go landside at HND and check luggage using the allowance on her ticket:
https://www.us.emb-japan.go.jp/itpr_...a-transit.html

However, to echo CPH, it would be an altogether better bet to fly JAL and have all of your luggage checked through - allowing you all to make the connection without entering Japan.

Thanks for your replies CPH and jib,

I would also like to fly JAL and have them connected through, but the major issues are scheduling and price.

• The AA flights that we are looking at from HND leave at 16:30 and 18:15
• JAL flights that land in HND are at 16:45 (too tight) and 13:00 (double price)

If money wasn't a concern, I'd do JL080 landing at 13:00, then AA168 leaving at 16:30, but that might even be too risky?

Considering the costs and inconvenience of missing the AA flight, paying more to reduce risk looks sensible to me.
I would prefer 3.5 hours for a JL to AA connection over 4 hours for NH to AA with a "dash around the flag" to re-check luggage. If I were flying on separate tickets with family in tow and limited budget, I would probably opt for the later AA flight, though.

Unless I'm mistaken, JL and AA will both use T3, but NH might arrive at T2.

You're right. Earlier I thought the ticketing website said NH landed at T3, but looking at it again they don't have a terminal listed. So that's an even bigger risk.

Will speak to the better half and continue planning. Thanks for all your help.