EQDsSUCK

My question is about an international transiting passenger rechecking bags on United airlines in Houston.

International arrivals to IAH are in Terminal D or E. After deplaning, you go through secure corridors and sky bridges to Federal Inspection Services (FIS). You clear Immigration and Passport Control, go downstairs, claim baggage and clear Customs.

At this point, there are two options:

1) Passengers with Houston as their final destination, exit security with their bags.

2) In-transit passengers will turn right upon exiting customs, and proceed to the recheck counters to deposit their bags for onward routing. Passengers then are subject to screening at the TSA security checkpoint before proceeding into the secure area of the departing terminal.

For a 940pm arrival and a 720am departure the next day, is it possible to recheck bags at the international transiting passenger recheck location immediately after customs as described above. Or, because it's an overnight connection, are we forced to exit security with bags and recheck them at the normal ticket counter when they open at 345am?

WineCountryUA

If not checked thru due to overnight, Airport Check-in Counter Locations (united.com)

The overnight issue will be determined by the arrival carrier, not UA. If not checked thru by the arrival carrier, UA will not accept the bags the night before

EQDsSUCK

Those are the hours of the normal United ticket counter.

I want to know what are the operating hours of the international transiting passenger baggage recheck location immediately after customs.

And what are the hours of the "TSA Security Recheck" immediately after the baggage recheck location so international transiting passengers can enter into the main part of the airport after going through Customs.

(I am assuming Eva Airways in Chiang Mai will check bags through to final destination since EVA and UA have a baggage interline agreement as part of Star Alliance.)

That process for arriving international passengers in IAH is described here. https://www.fly2houston.com/iah/international-travel

WineCountryUA

Unless BR checks thru, you will not be able to use the international recheck. There will be no bag check tag to the destination unless BR checks thru. Getting UA to create a new bag check tag at the international recheck is generally not done -- and as this is an overnight request, suspect they would decline anyways.

This is all about how BR handles it.

Bag recheck is a simple process -- the agent will just scan the bag tags for the final destination provide by the original carrier..

fumje

But even if the bag is tagged through to destination by BR and UA doesn't staff the recheck counter (original query), then OP is still stuck with the bag overnight. Unfortunately, I don't know the hours for which recheck is staffed.

Note re: original post mention of "exit[ing] security", all passengers arrive landside, so if there was a thought of staying airside overnight, that isn't possible.

EQDsSUCK

I agree that if BR doesn't check through to final destination, it would be difficult to get UA to do so at international arrivals baggage recheck location (will there even be a UA agent there after 10pm?).

So, you are confident if BR checks his bag to his final destination that he will be allowed to recheck it at baggage recheck after customs? Even at 10-11pm at night? Okay, that's great news. I was concerned that baggage recheck and TSA recheck would not be open that late, and international arrivals would have to exit security and go back through the normal bag check and security process.

Lets see if BR in Chiang Mai will check it through on the onward United flight from IAH. If they have an interline agreement and its a less than 12 hour layover, isn't there a good chance BR would do it? Or will the computer tell them its an overnight layover, and they will not do it?

I now wonder if there is a generic airport employee (not airline employee) that helps passengers lay bag back on a recheck conveyor belt that feeds into the IAH baggage system, even if there is not a UA employee at the little recheck counter at that time of night

The normal process for international arrival at Houston for transiting passengers is immediately after going through Customs, to go through a small TSA recheck that funnels transiting passengers into the main secure area of the airport. Unless that TSA recheck is closed late at night, passengers aren't really exiting the main secure area. (They just have to get rescreened since they had access to checked luggage during the recheck process. Its explained here: https://www.fly2houston.com/iah/international-travel

Kacee

Sure they are. Once you exit customs, you are landside. You cannot get back airside without clearing security, either at the transit checkpoint or at any of IAH's other security checkpoints.

JimInOhio

I don't think you can go through the connections TSA screening since you won't have a same-day boarding pass.

EQDsSUCK

My point is if you want to go from Customs to the domestic secure area of the airport, its much easier to go through the "TSA Recheck" point (yes, that's what they call it), rather than going out doors post-Customs into the main non-secure area of the airport with the ticket counters, and having to go through the TSA checkpoint there.

Okay, this is the type of useful information I am looking for. I had wondered if the TSA recheck was closed that late or one wouldn't be allowed if flight wasn't until next day.

Collierkr

recheck will be open for that flight arrival that OP mentioned. The real question is whether they will take the bags once they figure out the departing flight isn’t until next morning. I suspect yes as the recheck process is very rapid. Just drop and go. Never seen anyone say wait a minute where is this going and when.

why do you want to go back into the secure area immediately after your arrival? If you want to get to a real UA bag checking place you can take the basement level people mover to terminal C

YadiMolina

The recheck baggage personnel there are airport contractors. They do nothing more than scan the bag tags with a laser pistol gizmo, wait for a beep out of that same device, and place the bag on the conveyor (and sometimes, let the passenger to place the bag). They don't review boarding passes, they don't judge timing of future flights or eligibility for passing through to the TSA re-security upstairs or consult a computer terminal. So I suppose this all reverts back to your original airline checking bags through to the final destination. Beep, go on, no issues. No beep, I'm not sure what happens. I think they just refuse the bag and point you to the other airlines' recheck desks about 30 meters away.

I find the "TSA recheck" security system upstairs a little easier than standard security at other terminals. There is no pre-check though. I don't recall them checking boarding passes either. There's no official TSA document check like the regular lines. If there's anything, it's just a contractor looking for anything that looks like a boarding pass.

dkc192

Are we sure that the baggage recheck facility will be open that late? At least according to today's schedule, the last UA departure of the night is at 10:10pm (to ORD). If they only staff the recheck facility based on UA's flight schedule (my working assumption), there won't be anyone there past ~9:30pm.

I obviously have no experience in this specific matter, so if others have observed data points, those should take precedence over my conjecture.

JimInOhio

My son's and D-I-L's experience (at ORD, not IAH) coming off a delayed INTL flight did not pan out this way. When they got to the recheck station after T5 customs, the UA personnel told them they missed the bag drop cutoff time for their connecting flight. UA refused to take the bag, offloaded them from the flight, and rebooked them for the next day. This despite they probably had enough time to make it from T5 to T1 for the flight.

ETA: Their connection was the last flight of the day to their destination which I’m sure caused UA to refuse their bags at recheck.

IMRU

In IAH find it much easier to drop bags then exit the terminal and go up to the non-recheck TSA line. The recheck line at IAH is notoriously unreliable in terms of time to get through, and as noted upthread, has no Pre-Check. When I was there last weekend, and forgot to leave, they were trying out two new methods of putting folks through the line, that resulted significant confusion, more than usual TSA agent yelling, and a really long wait for them to "clear" the folks who didn't get the special screen from the line.

Since you're staying overnight, you won't go through re-check, but thought I'd add this data point since it was brought up.

1353513636

Pre-pandemic I flew MAN-IAH-SFO with an overnight (20 hrs) in IAH connecting SQ to UA and SQ tagged the bags to SFO and I dropped them off at the recheck area at IAH after arrival and they were accepted, no questions asked. The bags were sitting in the baggage office in SFO though so they may have flown ahead of my flight.