First trip...customs question

You go through customs when you enter a country, not when you leave. So when you fly out of Newark, you do not deal with customs at all. Arriving in Athens, assuming you have nothing unusual to declare, you will probably just go through a “nothing to declare” exit, with no delay. If you are declaring that you have food products, commercial items, etc or if you or your baggage might appear “ suspicious”, then you might be stopped for questions or a baggage inspection. Now, Immigration is different from customs. Your passport will be checked as you leave the US and arrive in Greece. The check itself just takes a minute, but sometimes there can be lengthy lines, if many international flights are leaving or arriving around the same time. Note: given the possibility of flight delays, etc., one hour might be a problem for connecting to a flight on to Crete. If Crete is on the same ticket, if you miss your connection, then your carrier should get you on the next flight to Crete, assuming there is a seat available. However, if your flight to Crete is on a separate ticket, then if you miss the connection, you may have a problem, perhaps even needing to buy a new “last minute” ticket to Crete. In that case especially, a longer connecting time would be better. There can also be lines at security checks any time you get on a flight, sometimes also when connecting from one flight to another.

You may get asked to show passport for security purposes anywhere along the way. Thats a different thing from immigration and customs.

Tim, "customs" is a word many inexperienced travellers misuse.

• Immigration (aka passport control) is the check on people entering and leaving a country. This is where they check your passport, decide whether to let you into the country, and if necessary stamp your passport. This can take time (10 minutes - 1 hour).
• Customs is the check on goods, the contents of your luggage, whether that is allowed into the country and if any customs duty (taxes) are payable. This takes no time.

These are two separate processes which happen at two different locations.

I assume this is all one one ticket. If it is not, you would have to check-in again at Athens and no way 1 hour would be enough. Even with a through ticket, 1 hour sounds tight, as your first flight may be late.

What will happen is:
1) At Newark your bags will be labelled through to Crete. You will go through US exit passport control.
2) At Athens you go through the Schengen Area entry passport control. Hopefully this will not take 1 hour!
3) At Crete, you will be re.united with your bags and carry them through customs. Walk through the "nothing to declare" exit, they only ever do random checks (< 1% stopped)

Chris I do not think the luggage thing can happen as you describe, because the flight from Newark is only to-from Athens, it is not part of a connector ticket to Greece. tim is terse re details, but I'm guessing he already has a flight EWR - ATH, and is choosing among the available domestic flights available. That means his luggage stops at Athens, just as he does. His plane from EWR will have 400+ people on it, and most of them will be in the passport control line for NON-EU.. so that's at least 25 minutes. If his plane lands about the same time as another jumbo jet, that will be up to 45 minutes. THEN he has to go wait at luggage claim... and that itself can take 25 minutes-plus... then he has to check it IN for his domestic flight. So no, even if he managed to get himself to that earlier plane, his bags would still be in Athens, going round & round on the carousel.

We Greece-travel "vets" from normally advise (1) if your plane is one of those overnight nonstops from US or Canada, arriving between 9 - 10 AM, allow at least 90 minutes for a connection (2) If you must make a connection in Europe and arrive after 12 noon, through the afternoon, allow 2 hours ... both because more planes will be arriving in ATH in afternoon, AND Europe connections during mid-day are more likely to be delayed taking off, thus more likely to be tardy arriving at Athens.

Tim, Janet, I did say "I assume this is all one one ticket." If it is not, there is no way 1 hour is enough.
Tim, you would then have to:

• Disembark and go through immigration (which can take 30-60 minutes)
• Pick up your bag and go through customs.
• Go to arrivals and check in again for your second flight. How long is the minimum check in for the Crete flight? 1 Hour? 90 minutes?
• Go back through departure security.

And your transatlantic flight could be late - NO WAY

Thanks Chris F ... I did note your careful explanation of assumption... the reason I posted was that many Europeans do not realize that as of now, I believe there is NO "one-ticket" arrangement for Planes coming from USA to ATH, at least nonstop. If the flier has a a connection in Europe, he/she may add on something at the connection point (Frankfurt etc) that would be ATH- (Island). Haven't seen it yet, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. I wish for it.