Passport control in Seattle on return from CUN

[scubamickey]

Flying back from Cancun through Seattle--will I pre-clear customs in Cancun or is it all done in Seattle? Will my 1:30 layover in Seattle be long enough to get through passport control and customs? Not that I have a choice at this point-I leave Friday night.

 

[Jcsgt]

You should be going through Customs in Seattle. An hour and-a-half should be about right.

 

[akbpilot]

If you are on the flight I think you are on, you might be cutting it close. It took us over an hour to clear customs on that flight, and when you are done you still need to get out of customs and over to the domestic terminal, and to your gate. Our holdup was luggage, the first bag from the flight didn't show until 1/2 hour after we had landed, and ours were the last to come out. We would never had made an hour and a half connection. I was glad we had planned to stay overnight in Seattle and weren't rushed.

 

[scubamickey]

If you are on the flight I think you are on, you might be cutting it close. It took us over an hour to clear customs on that flight, and when you are done you still need to get out of customs and over to the domestic terminal, and to your gate. Our holdup was luggage, the first bag from the flight didn't show until 1/2 hour after we had landed, and ours were the last to come out. We would never had made an hour and a half connection. I was glad we had planned to stay overnight in Seattle and weren't rushed.

I'm on flt 89 to ANC it's the 9:40 PM flight. We'll have 4 bags too . Was the delay customs or passport control? Customs usually goes fast on the flights I've been on. It's immigration/passport control that has always held the lines up.

Oh, well. We can always spend the night at the USO if we can't catch the last flight out. I'm an MVP so I'll get some priority for rebooking at least.

 

[akbpilot]

I figure you are on flt 297 CUN-SEA. Like I said, our holdup was the luggage. We came out of first class less then a minute after the door opened, were 2nd in line at passport, probably spent no more then a minute in line there, moved to luggage pickup, waited nearly an hour for the bags to show (ours were so late, I fully expected they were MIA), less then 5 minutes total in customs. Ours was the only flight at Immigration or Customs that night. We would never had made the flight you are on (flt 89).

I've seen a downhill slide in Alaska Airlines Seattle baggage handling ever since they started contracting out a couple years ago. I have altered my connection expectations greatly on our last few trips. I don't plan any tight connections, consequently I'm not disappointed. Sounds like you have a contingency plan, so you should be golden. Have fun in Cozumel.

 

[Byte Me]

Isn't the issue going to be the minimum 45 minutes you have to have your luggage rechecked before your next flight? Coming back from CUN through Chicago we could easily have made the 6:40 flight clearing customs, passport, rechecking and security but since it was 6:00 when we tried to recheck our luggage we got "sorry - luggage has to be in 45 minutes so you can't make that flight". So we sat until the 9:30 flight. Yuck. Nice thing was that while we had a Wolfgang Puck pizza and beer we got free entertainment from the mice running around the place!

 

[lamont]

I was on Alaska 297 january 1st and the baggage delay was very long. We actually had to get our baggage and then re-check it and then pick it up again in the main terminal. Luckily the re-checking was fairly efficient and my bags showed up almost right as soon as I got to the baggage claim in the main terminal. The wait for them initially to show up before customs was incredibly long though.

I doubt you'll make a 1.5 hour connection unless you are very lucky.

 

[scubamickey]

In the Miami airport the rechecking part entails throwing the luggage onto a conveyor belt and dashing off to your gate. Are you guys saying this is different in Seattle? Will I have to go to the main terminal outside of security to do the check in process all over again?

 

[scubamickey]

I've seen a downhill slide in Alaska Airlines Seattle baggage handling ever since they started contracting out a couple years ago. I have altered my connection expectations greatly on our last few trips. I don't plan any tight connections, consequently I'm not disappointed. Sounds like you have a contingency plan, so you should be golden. Have fun in Cozumel.

Yes we are on flt 297 connecting to 89.

Absolutely! I love Alaska Airlines but the baggage contractors they have in Seattle really do suck! In June they left 3 flight's worth of luggage sitting in Seattle and this cascaded for 3 days. So we didn't get our bags for about 2 days. We were really worried that we'd never see our brand new underwater video gear again.

How can the airport get away with having a 1 hour wait! This is absurd. What the heck were they doing with the bags during that time? I had a wait about that long at Dulles last year but that was because our flight from Seattle was so delayed to do mechanical issues that we arrive 3 hours overdue at like 2AM and there was nobody in baggage. But Seattle at 9:30?

Come on! This makes me so mad.

 

[lamont]

In the Miami airport the rechecking part entails throwing the luggage onto a conveyor belt and dashing off to your gate. Are you guys saying this is different in Seattle? Will I have to go to the main terminal outside of security to do the check in process all over again?

no, i think its the same, you go through the control point and then you dump it off on a conveyor belt and go find your connecting flight. but we also had to re-check luggage and pick it up again at the baggage claim for those terminating their trips in seattle...