Arriving

Immigration - Passport Control

Once you’ve arrived you will need to be processed by immigration and then by customs once you’ve retrieved your luggage. The queues for immigration are likely to be long, especially if more than one international flight has landed.Some airports (eg Tokyo-Narita) have priority queues for people travelling with small children and officials in other airports (eg Bangkok and Heathrow) will pull anyone with a baby to the front of a queue. This sometimes happens with check-in queues and security queues too. The best experience we’ve had was in Narita where we were pulled to the front of every queue - including at the JAL hotel. As we arrived quite late at night with a jet-lagged baby this was great.

TIP - fill in your entry cards before the plane lands. Make sure you have filled in both sides and every section - don’t forget to sign it! This saves a lot of time at immigration control.
TIP - have all of your passports in a readily accessible spot - I like to put my entry card inside my passport (and the kids) to mark the photo page. This makes it easier for the customs officer and gets you through the process quicker.

© 2008 Flying with Baby.