Zone before control
- Entrance Control
An optional item. The security checkpoint is the most undemanding check you will encounter at the airport terminal. This is where the first baggage belts and x-ray machines are located. This formality ensures security on the airport grounds. - Retail stores and restaurants
Forget to buy souvenirs? Not a big fan of onboard dining? Even before you get through security at the airport terminal you can splurge and fill up. In small stores except for memorable gifts and food they usually sell some little things that you may suddenly need during check-in. For example, 100 ml cans for liquids (if you carry it in your hand luggage). - Check-in and baggage drop-off counter
The first point of the flight procedure is check-in (if you have not done it online) and baggage drop-off. Airports in different countries have different approaches to this procedure: in the USA, for instance, an employee picks up your luggage and puts it on the conveyor belt by hand, while at European airports the staff usually sit at a desk while the passenger puts his/her luggage on the belt which goes to the main conveyor belt – human intervention is minimal.
Checked-in passengers are allocated by the system to their flights on a list that is compiled before the end of the check. At the same time, luggage is also divided according to the appropriate labels. Now this is increasingly happening automatically: online systems independently, eliminating all manual work, send luggage to the right flight at the same time.
After-check area
- Customs and Border Protection areas (for flights abroad)
As at the land border crossings, you have to go through passport control to leave the country. Usually the windows are divided into “For N citizens” and “For all passports” (All passports, All nationalities). The procedure is standard. In the customs control zone you declare your possessions, if necessary. If there is no need for bureaucratic agony you pass through the green corridor (Nothing to declare). If you need the customs declaration you go through the red corridor (Goods to declare). - Security check area
After check-in, baggage drop-off and possibly passport control and customs inspection, each passenger is inspected together with his/her hand luggage. Any deviations from the country’s rules or simply body language may require a thorough examination and a secondary screening. Change your shoes, even those with a slight heel, into shoe covers, take off your watches, belts and jewelry, and empty your pockets of all metal change. This is where you might get confiscated an overly large jar of pesto or French blue cheese that doesn’t fit within the given carry-on parameters. Every person going through pre-flight inspection has been entered on a list at check-in. This document, the manifest, isn’t just important so passengers don’t get confused: it provides data on the load factor and is an important element in the investigative chain if something goes wrong. - Departure area: waiting room, lounge, restaurants, duty-free
Between pre-flight inspection and departure you are greeted by the lounge. The departures area is designed to ensure that you will not mope before the start of your trip (the boarding signal) or during your connection. The space generates a retail paradise as only it could be: duty-free stores, the number of which is limited only by the size of the terminal, restaurants and lounge areas. When boarding begins, it is from there, from the right gate, that you are transported to the plane – on foot, by sleeve, or by bus. - Arrival area: passport control, baggage return, customs control
The rules of the airport arrival area are the same as for boarding. Only vice versa. The same procedures are reversed: first (if necessary) show your passport, then catch the bag you like on the belt (read here what to do if your luggage is lost) and after that – also only if necessary – go through the customs control.