question re flying into China

[Steve Crook]

I am looking to fly from Narita to Beijing later in the year. The ticket that I look like buying is on China Southern via Shenyang. Can anyone tell me if it will be a matter of collecting bags in Shenyang, passing through customs/immigration then rechecking in for the onward to Beijing? Or will bags be checked through to Beijing and that's where I'll pass through immigration. The two legs that pop up on the website that I will probably use have different flight numbers.
Thank you

[Brian Noldt]

Steve,

My wife and I have been to China a few times.

These have been my experiences.

We flew Sydney - Beijing - Guiyang with Air China in 2011. We arrived in Beijing at 6.30am, went through passport control, then picked up our luggage and went to the domestic transfer desk to check in. We then had to go through security and this was a joke. There were "hundreds" all trying to do what we were attempting to do and there was only 1 person stamping the boarding passes. This was done after checking our image with our passport photo. You had to stand in front of a camera. We had to go through a total of 3 security check points before we were able to head for our departure gate. We arrived 10 minutes before push back which was at 7.50am.
The other time was from Hefei - Shanghai - Sydney flying with China Eastern. At the check in at Hefei, our luggage was checked through to Sydney. When we arrived at Shanghai we did go to the luggage carousel for our flight from Hefei to see if our luggage was there, but it was not. We had a 10 hour stop over as there was only 1 China Eastern flight out of Hefei.
Our other trips to China were direct flights ie. Sydney - Guangzhou etc.
Hope this is some help.

Brian.

[Steve Crook]

Thanks Brian. It will be interesting to see what happens. I ended up booking a Shanghai Airlines/China Eastern ticket flying from Haneda to Beijing via Hongqiao Airport in Shanghai. I guess I will have a better idea when I check in in Tokyo and see where my bag is check through to.

[Montague S]

Steve, I flew into CAN and connected onwards to PEK, the only thing I had to do was go through security for the onward flight, but at 7am CAN has some pretty decent lineup!

didn't have to collect luggage as it was tagged all the way...the difference I think is if you fly from PEK to a foreign destination via say CAN or PVG, then you will need to collect your luggage and check-it at the counters.

[Steve Crook]

Thanks Montague. I certainly hope that that's how things pan out...all part of the adventure!! By the way, I'm flying to Beijing to go on an aviation tour of North Korea - pretty excited about that. Looking forward to a flight on an Il-62 amongst others