Flying from San Francisco to LAX - what's the wait when we arrive in LAX

[nicinoo]

Hi everyone,

We're doing a US trip in January, we are flying domestically from San Fran into LAX arriving at 12:09 on 4/1/11 flying UA. As I've never travelled in the US before and I've heard nightmare stories about LAX I was just wondering approximately how long does it take to collect baggage and actually get out of the Airport. We're staying at the Beverly Garland's HOliday Inn and am wanting to book a tour that gets picked up from our hotel at 3pm, will this be enough time???

Alternatively it leaves from the Chinese Theatre at 3:45pm, will this be enough - flying domestically in AUS it takes about 20 mins to collect baggage etc but unsure about LAX any advice would be appreciated

Nic

 

[Skyring]

Getting out of LAX domestic terminals should be pretty quick. No immigration, no security screening, just grab your bags and go. Half hour, tops. It's arrival from Oz and trying to make onward connections that can get worrisome, especially if you arrive after a bunch of drug smugglers from somewhere south of Tijuana.

And, may I be the first to welcome you aboard? Would you like sparkling wine, orange juice or a hot towel?

 

[nicinoo]

awesome that's good news, well I might not get them to pick us up from the hotel that way we can dump our bags and start exploring - we can meet them at the Chinese Theatre, from LA we head to Los Cabos for a friends wedding, after a week there we come back to LAX for another 4 nights, so that will be a nightmare won't it should I allow for a good 2-3 hours to get through customs etc before we can go???

Thanks for your help : )

 

[wywk]

I flew from Las Vegas to LAX via US Airways, it was an early morning flight and got into LAX at around 8.45am. It took us less than 15mins to get out from the time we got off the plane and collected our luggage. It was surprisingly really quick and we got a taxi straight away to our hotel.

 

[Keith009]

Have only ever arrived at LAX domestically at T4 with AA, so this might not apply to other terminals. It's mostly a breeze - gate to baggage belt in under 15 mins. No checks, no nothing - not unlike arriving at an Australian domestic terminal. What happens at baggage collection tends to depend on the time you're arriving - at peak times AA tends to merge several flights on to a single belt which can lead to slight delays.

edit: just read your subsequent post. 2-3 hours might be a bit excessive. I've never taken more than an hour to clear immigration/customs at LAX, even at TBIT at peak time which resembled a zoo when I arrived. Again, highly dependent on what time you're arriving. I am not aware if there's pre-clearance at the Mexican end. If so - your arrival at LAX would be just like any other domestic arrival. If not, give it about 90 minutes.

 

[docjames]

When we arrived ex-CUN (Cancun) to LAX TBIT it was just under an hour from deplaning to kerbside (albeit we had to re-checkin to QF which also took a while - about another hour! Most of that was bag screening in the departures hall, with shortish security queue).