International travel with connecting flights with different airlines

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Because there are so many variables, there is no "in general" answer to your question. Whether you can drop luggage in the first departure airport and retrieve it in the final destination airport can depend on (at least) these factors:

  • Where the flight(s) transfer or terminate. For example, if an international flight lands in the US, the arriving international passenger must pass through US Immigration, retrieve luggage, then pass through US Customs. (Even this, however, is subject to exception for arriving international travelers who departed from a non-US airport where USCBP maintains a preclearance facility.)
  • Whether the flights were ticketed on a single PNR or separately. Sometimes, a single PNR will indicate that the airline or airlines will handle the luggage "behind the scenes," allowing the traveler to drop luggage at first check-in, and retrieve it at the arrival airport ending the itinerary. Whether this can happen, however, will also be dependent upon the identity of both the airline(s) and the identify of the two airports in question.
  • The identity of the air carriers, and whether (if there are more than one carrier) the carriers have an interline agreement that allows the carriers to transfer luggage from one carrier to the other.

Thus: what you can or must do during your trip will depend upon the specific details of your itinerary, your ticket(s), and the identity of the airline(s) involved.

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