luggage when transferring flights?

There are many factors that influence this, like whether you’re connecting in a different country, whether that country requires all incoming passengers to recheck their bags, whether you purchased both legs of the flight on a single ticket, and whether both airlines have interline agreements.

In this article, we’ll explain what happens to your luggage during connecting flights, so you can understand in which layovers you’ll need to recheck your bag, and in which ones your bag will transfer automatically.

*Rechecking luggage means picking up/collecting your checked bag at the connecting airport, going through customs and immigration, and then checking it in again for the next flight.

When you’re checking in your bag at the check-in counter, look at the label that the airline employee attaches to your bag. It will say where the bag is headed to. If it’s headed to the layover country/airport, you’ll need to recheck your bags there. If it’s headed to the final destination, you won’t need to recheck your bags. This is the most accurate way of knowing whether you’ll need to recheck your bags or not.

If you aren’t sure, you can just ask the employee at the check-in counter or call up the airline before heading to the airport. Some airlines will also let you short-check your bags if you ask, which basically means that you will need to recheck your bags. This is useful if you want to access your checked bag during the layover.

If you’re traveling from one destination to another, but you have a stopover along the way, and both your flights are on the same ticket (meaning, you purchased them in a single purchase, most likely through a broker), your bags will probably be checked to the final destination.

This means you don’t have to worry about collecting your baggage from the luggage carousel and having to check it in all over again. You can just sit down, relax, and enjoy the trip.

An interline agreement is an agreement between two airlines that decide to form a partnership. It simply provides a way for passengers to book itineraries on multiple airlines (including trips with layovers) without the hassle of booking each one separately. So for instance, if you’d book a flight on American airlines to an airport where American Airlines doesn’t operate, they’d most likely offer you a flight with a stopover somewhere, where the first or the second flight would be operated by American Airlines and the other one by a partnering airline, let’s say Delta or United.

If two airlines have an interline agreement in place, it means that the airline which operates the first leg of the flight will automatically recheck luggage to the partnering airline. This means that travelers who book tickets with airlines that have an existing interline agreement only need to check in once for all the flights on their itinerary and their luggage will automatically be transferred to the second airline.

So how do you find out if both airlines have interline agreements? Well, if you booked both flights on the same website and they’re on the same ticket, then they have an interline agreement. But other than that, there’s really no simple way to tell, other than Googling both airlines + “interline agreement” and doing all the research yourself.

Sometimes, even on two flights with different airlines that were booked separately, checked luggage will automatically get transferred to the final destination because both airlines had interline agreements that you didn’t know about.

If you are flying on different carriers with different tickets (meaning, each flight was booked separately), then there is a high probability that your luggage won’t be transferred automatically and you’ll have to do it yourself. Aside from experiencing a slight inconvenience, it isn’t actually that difficult to recheck the luggage yourself.

If the layover is pretty long (3 hours or more), then you might not be able to check it right away as the check-in counter might still be closed. If that’s the case, you can explore the airport or grab a quick snack.

Once the check-in counter opens, all you have to do is drop off your bags, pick up your boarding pass, go through the security, and wait to board the plane at the gate — pretty much identical to how you boarded your first flight.

If you’re on an international trip and the country of the layover requires you to go through customs, you’ll need to exit the plane, collect your luggage, go through customs, and then check in your luggage all over again. It’s a little bit of a hassle, especially since you just want to relax before your next flight, but it’s a requirement so there’s no escaping it.

This requirement exists because some countries want to make sure that all incoming passengers aren’t bringing anything illegal. Even ones who won’t step out of the airport and are there just for a quick layover. This means that you need to do some research to find out what kinds of items are illegal in that country. For instance, most countries won’t allow bringing any plants, fruit, vegetables, meats, eggs, specific types of knives, and some dangerous goods. Your checked bag will be scanned for these items when going through customs and immigration.

For instance, if you’re flying internationally and you’re arriving in the US with a connecting flight to a different location in the US, you’ll have to recheck your bags the first time you land in the US. Each country has different rules though.

Here are some countries that require arriving passengers to recheck their luggage upon first landing, even if it’s just a connection:

Sometimes, especially when flying to less-popular airports, you’ll need to recheck your bag in your last connection. This happens only if the last airport you’ll be arriving at doesn’t have customs facilities, so you’ll be required to go through them at the previous airport.

For instance, if you were flying New York (USA) – Amsterdam (Netherlands) – Girona (a Smaller Spanish airport without customs near Barcelona), you’d have to re-check your bag in Amsterdam, because Girona doesn’t have customs facilities. If, however, you’d be flying New York (USA) – Amsterdam (Netherlands) – Barcelona (Spain), you wouldn’t have to re-check your bags at Amsterdam, because Barcelona has customs facilities.

If your baggage isn’t automatically transferred, picking it up at the layover country and then rechecking it back in isn’t that hard. Here’s how the process usually goes:

Read Next: Can You Leave the Airport During a Layover?

Generally, it’s pretty easy to understand whether you’ll need to recheck your bag if you know other factors, like if both flights are purchased in the same booking and where the layover is going to take place. However, to be certain, you should always check the label attached to your checked bag – if it’s destined for your final destination, then you won’t need to recheck your bag. Alternatively, you could just get in touch with the airline and ask directly.