Baggage Check Question
 

Hey, friends. New to the forums and making my first international trip in May. I am flying on Mesa Air from MEM-CLT, then hopping the Lufthansa flight from CLT-MUC, then flying from MUC-FLR on an Air Dolomiti Lufthansa codeshare. What do I do about customs when entering Europe? I will have one bag checked. When/where will I need to recheck it?

Thanks so much.

So many questions. Welcome to flyertalk captainplanet. I hope you stay with us. Your thread might be moved to a different section.

To answer your question I have to make some assumptions:
Your whole trip is booked on one itinerary, meaning you have one ticket and not two seperated tickets.

In this case your luggage will be checked through to your final destination FLR and won't see it again until you arrive in FLR. You will go through immigration in FRA and through a small customs check point for your hand luggage which is most of the time not manned anyways. Your FRA-FLR flight will be a Schengen-flight which is domestic European flight within the Schengen Area. At FLR you will pick up your luggage and just walk outside. There won't be any mandatory customs check but a customs agent can identify that your trip started outside the European Union because you baggage tags won't have the green lining which intra-European tags have.

Thanks for your help. I'm booking the trip through travelocity. I guess that won't have any bearing upon this? Sorry if I posted in the wrong forum.

Welcome to FT. The previous answer pretty much covers it, but since you're a newbie here I'll just lay it out in detail.

1. When you arrive at MEM Mesa (known in FT land as Messy Air) will check your bags all the way through to FLR. Be proactive and say "I'm flying to CLT and then on the FLR via FRA, please check the bags all the way through, and then double check your baggage receipt, which should have CLT FRA FLR on it.

2. They will be transfered automatically at CLT and then again at FRA. You won't see them until you arrive in FLR.

2b. [added] When you get to the LH gate at CLT they will need to enter your bag information into their system, just show them your luggage receipt and they'll take care of it. LH will probably also reprint the BPs that you got when you checked in with Mesa, they always seem to for me.

3. At FRA you will pass through passport control, but you will do this without leaving the terminal.

4. At FLR, retrieve your bags in baggage claim and just walk through the "nothing to declare" side. There will be personnel standing around, but the odds of being stopped are extraordinarily low.

On the return (assuming the same return route), it will be a bit different. Your bags will again be checked all the way through, but you will need to retieve them at CLT where the procedure will be:

1. Go through immigration/passport control.
2. Retrieve your bags in baggage claim.
3. Walk through customs.
4. Deposit your bags in the bag recheck area (all easier than it sounds).

Enjoy FLR!!

Now, my advise. If you're only checking one bag, I'd think seriously about whether or not I could possibly do it with a carryon.

No worries. Happens all the time. Just browse a little bit through flyertalk and you will soon get more familiar and probably find a lot of interesting sections.