HKIA to Macau
 

Hi,

I will be reaching HKIA at 1145 hours local time. I have a TurboJet ferry at 1245 hours from the Airport terminal.
I will have some checked in luggage also.
Please guide me the best procedure so that I can make it to my ferry on time.

Utkarsh

I got there with time to twiddle my thumbs and no time to spare but I had no checked bags. Is there no way you can put everything into carryon?

Are you already committed to the ferry? If your plane gets in late, there's no way. If you are in the back of the plane so that it takes twenty minutes to deplane, there's no way. And, to second the last poster, if you have to wait for your luggage, there's no way.

Unless you have already paid for the ferry, I'd book a later one. If you have, I'd go carry-on only and try to make it. If you can't, I'd assume that I'd be buying a new ferry ticket.

OP might post in the China forum, but I thought the ferries grabbed the luggage directly before it goes to the baggage claim, so you avoid customs and immigration. This was true when I took the ferry to Shenzhen at least--never cleared immigration in HK and my luggage was placed on the Shenzhen dock.

An hour still could be tight because of the time it can take to get from the plane to the ferry loading area (I think they start boarding 1/2 hour before departure), but it's not impossible if you're running on time.

The ferry company does claim your bag for you, as you do not need to enter Hong Kong officially. I didn't know this going in, but was surprised how efficiently it seemed to be done. No clue how they do it, but they did. I didn't have an advance ticket, so I bought one at their ticket counter in the area off to the right of the lobby prior to HK immigration. Near there is the entrance to a train that takes you under the airport and out to the ferry pier. It was quite a slick system, I was impressed by it.

So to recap, you won't have any customs and immigration to deal with, and they will forward your checked luggage for you.

While this is true, most of the ferries have cutoff times for checked luggage well in advance of the departure time. Even one hour might not be sufficient by the time the OP gets to the recheck desk. I don't know about the provisions for changing a ticket on TurboJet.