Howdy All,
My friend and I are flying into Lisbon on Sept. 15th. and I was wondering if anyone has recent experiences at the airport-i,e, did your checked bag get lost or did it arrive on the carousel, were the lines for customs hours long or not a big whup?
So many horror stories about lost luggage and 4 hour waits at customs over the Summer-just hoping things have mellowed out a bit.
Thanks!
We just returned from Portugal 2 days ago- leaving from Lisbon. We always do carry-on, so cannot speak to luggage issues. TSA was a breeze, with plenty of agents and fast lines. But, we did have difficulty moving thru immigration. The self-scan kiosks were not working, so had to wait in line for an agent. Only ONE agent working!! Passengers lined up in the queues. We did make it to our gate with minutes to spare, but passengers were crowding ahead because they were going to miss their flight, which pushed us back even further. Best advice-as soon as the gate is listed on the monitor, go to immigration and the gates. Do not wait. I have read of this difficulty previously, it appears to be an ongoing issue.
Denise—did you fly direct to US? We fly Lisbon to London then to San Francisco. Do we need to go through immigration on our exit? It’s been so long, I can’t remember
Coming from London you will still need to go through passport control. Sorry!
And, customs is really nothing in Lisbon. It’s passport control that has had significant problems this summer. It really does depend on when you land - and how many other flights are arriving from outside the EU around that time. You could always look at the airport website for arrivals if you want to have some idea.
From the things I’ve read lately, the baggage issue is better. Other than a strike this last weekend that included smaller carriers.
The best news of all is that you aren’t traveling in August, so it should be a bit better in terms of crowds.
We had a near miss for our luggage in Greece in April so highly recommend not checking bags at all. Meanwhile, would also like to hear the comments as we're trying to get flights to Lisbon from SFO. Seems like the flights are quite popular. Looking for better stories with what airlines anyone would recommend.
I returned from Switzerland on Friday (9th). The airport was crowded but my bag was there on the carousel as expected. It really didn’t seem much more crowded than I’ve seen it in the years before Covid. And, the horror stories of the long lines for passport control have disappeared in recent weeks. 🤞
We landed in Lisbon on 9/8 and went through passport control in less than 5 minutes once we got to it. Had to bus us from the plane to terminal and then a nice hike to passport control then another hike to baggage area which was right next to customs. That line was long but moved very fast as the agents were in conversation with each other and took very little notice of anybody. There were a lot of people at baggage pickup!
Thank you, everyone, for your responses. Much appreciated!
Here's hoping those darn kiosks get fixed...but if that is the only vexation we have during our trip, no biggie.
Portugal-here we come!!!
