Delta Air Lines starting to eliminate re-check requirements

Those who travel internationally frequently will know that an airport transfer could mean chaos for your baggage.

While flying with the same airline generally means that airport workers will move whatever one checked from one plane to the other for you, there are exceptions. Most often, when flying with the carrier’s partners or during long transfers (this is done to avoid a situation in which the bag is kicking around in a room for many hours and could get separated from the owner.)

Certain customs requirements mean that such situations are particularly common on long transatlantic flights between Asia and the U.S. but, as a Delta Air Lines executive recently let slip, the airline is starting to eliminate its re-check requirements on flights from Tokyo and, eventually, Seoul.

“Anyone who has traveled and connected in the United States knows that it’s a difficult experience,” Jeff Moomaw, Delta’s VP for the Asia South Pacific Region, told Japanese outlet The Mainichi. “We will soon be able to remove that part of the experience.”

The bag re-check requirement will initially be lifted for flights out of Tokyo Haneda Airport, from which the airline has six routes includes ones to Seattle, Detroit and Honolulu, while the airline hopes to remove it for Seoul’s Incheon International Airport later in the year — Delta flies there from New York, Minneapolis-St. Paul and Seattle.

According to Moomaw, passengers would frequently say that the recheck requirement was inconvenient and “difficult” but airports that are not designated as precleared by CBP still require this. Moomaw did not elaborate on how it was working with airport authorities to not require it of passengers.

’WE ARE STARTING TO SEE MORE DEMAND FOR INTERNATIONAL’

“We are starting to see more demand for international [flights]” after the pandemic,” Moomaw told The Mainichi. “Tokyo market has the most capacity for Delta of any other market in Asia. We are very committed to Tokyo and Japan longterm.”

In general, any baggage changes introduced by the airline have generally leaned toward increasing prices. At the start of 2024, JetBlue Airways, Alaska Airlines and American Airlines have all raised their checked bag prices as part of a “domino” effect.

A change for the positive occurred when, in March 2024, United Airlines announced that it would retrofit some of its planes to have more space in the overhead compartment. With the cost of checking a bag rising, more passengers have been settling for a single carry-on suitcase.

While this may be a good money-saving travel hack, it has been creating a situation in which the plane cannot fit all the carry-ons people bring aboard and ends up having to to check them free of charge anyway. When analyzing their markets, airlines repeatedly find that how smooth the baggage process is goes a long way toward customer satisfaction.

“Customer sentiment for the new overhead bins and signature interiors has been extremely positive,” United’s Chief Customer Officer Linda Jojo said in a statement. “By helping to eliminate the need to gate check bags, we are seeing an increase in gate and boarding satisfaction.”