At least for international flights to the United States (specifically from Western Europe), travellers must pass through a security checkpoint as they exit the airport. (Possibly, but presumably not likely, this is only being done for some reason at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta Airport.) This is a standard airport security screening: Checked bags on the conveyor belt (laptops removed from bags please) and through the X-ray machine; shoes off (and onto the conveyor belt), empty pockets, walk through the metal detector. There was one of the new millimeter wave body scanners, though only some people were being asked to go through it (with others being directed through the old fashioned metal detector gate). Again, this was for people leaving the airport and going out into the streets of Atlanta, Georgia, and not for people entering the airport, or transferring onto another airplane. Anyone have any idea what the purpose of this check is?
Because as you go through customs you have pick up all your luggage. If you are transferring to another domestic flgiht (and most people are), you just take that luggage from the one area, walk past the customs guy, then put it on the belt in the other area.
But now you’ve just touched your luggage. You had an oppurtunity to go into your bag and pull out something that is not allowed as carry-on. Could be a weapon or firearm or something really hazardous like 8oz of Red Bull!!
So everyone gets rechecked! as they enter the main airport from the INTL Terminal.
And yes, it has to do with the way Hartsfield-Jackson is set up.
To expand on the last sentence, the INTL terminal area does not exit straight into the standard baggage claim. If you remember, it’s actually quite aways away and you go through the other secure terminals to get to the actual baggage claim and exit. (for non transferers)
And since you are going through those secure terminals, and since you touched your checked baggage as you carried it by the customs guy, you could possibly bring “Checked Baggage Only” items through those secure terminals if you were not searched right there.
Thanks. That makes at least some sense.
So you are not talking about when you exit, but when you re-enter?
Frankfurt airport is the same way - you get rescreened when you get off enter the European area from an international area and vice versa.
As far as know, this phenomenon is limited to Atlanta, and maybe a handful of other airports that have this bass-ackwards set up where exiting passengers have to pass through other secured areas. They don’t do it t JFK, for example.
Wait, so what happens to your checked luggage if Atlanta IS your final destination? You’ve already retrieved it to pass through custom, but there’s no on-going flight so you can’t just re-check them. Do you have to surrender your duty-free booze?
Your bags get put on a belt and taken to the regular baggage claim in the main terminal. So intl. arrivals in Atlanta get to wait for their luggage at one bag claim, pass thru customs, place their bags on a belt for the claim outside the secure zone, pass thru security themselves, go to the main terminal, and then claim their bags again. I am sure that is a real hoot to go through. I have only connected to a domestic flight at Atl, and that was enough of a pain. Not as much as Miami, but still.
This is… messed up. 
Yes, yes it is… You do get to put your bags in different conveyor belts, IIRC. One for the “you stay here” and another for the “you’re travelling elsewhere”.
Thanks for the explanation, Bear.
Why, as a loyal Atlantan and a patriotic American, I must vigorously dispute the suggestions made by some other posters to this thread that this is anything at all aggravating or backwards in this process of recovering one’s checked luggage after a nine-hour flight, schlepping it from the first conveyor belt where it has, thanks be to the gods of air travel, finally appeared, to a second conveyor belt to be whisked off to another part of the airport (which process certainly would not cause any person to fear that his just-recovered and thankfully intact luggage is about to be lost or damaged or accidentally shipped to Uganda moments after the hardy air traveller has finally been reunited with his underwear), while in the meantime the hardy air traveller gets to experience the joys of an airport security screening for the third time* that day to ensure he has no weapons concealed in his shoes or excessively large containers of liquids on his person before going out into the streets of Atlanta (where they have gun shows on a monthly basis, not to mention numerous places selling knives, machetes, chainsaws, and a wide assortment of household chemicals)…Nope! Nothing aggravating about any of THAT!
Anyway, at least there is some sort of semi-rational explanation here.
*I guess I must have overlooked the duty-free gun store in the concourse at Schipol Airport between the arriving gate for the flight from London and the departure gate for the flight to Atlanta.
Is that what that was? I was running between planes, so I didn’t stop to look.
Yeah, a few airports have aggravating “quirks” that reflect their traffic-flow engineering dating to before one or more paradigm shifts
(FWIW, a lot of US airports took until the current century to even make it so you don’t have to exit and reenter through security to move from one *domestic *concourse to another. See also: Miami; Baltimore…)
My guess is that they do it so that they don’t have to take, say, England’s word for it that the stuff entering the United States has been checked out properly. Even if you’re pretty sure that their security is up to scratch, it’s a lot easier to be certain about your own security.
Last week American canceled my non-stop Chicago to Raleigh flight and rebooked me onto a Chicago to LaGuardia to Raleigh flight. The transfer time at Laguardia was fifty minutes, and required me to get from the D concourse to the C concourse, which included having to go through security again. I just barely made it, particularly since I had to stop at the new gate to get my seat assignment. Oh, and American didn’t bother to tell me what gate my second flight was leaving from; I had to locate a display board after I got off the first plane to find that out, and then figure out how to get there.
That wouldn’t really make a lot of sense, though; this appeared to be your standard airport security search, checking for knives and guns and small bombs hidden in one’s shoes. Weapons in general are pretty readily obtainable in most major American cities; there would be little point in checking to make sure people aren’t smuggling guns from England (which has very restrictive gun laws) to America (in most parts of which there are gun stores and pawn shops openly selling stuff which would leave most Londoners gobsmacked), and if one wishes to blow up a building, it would make more sense to buy large sacks of the right kind of fertilizer right here in town rather than trying to smuggle in something disguised as hand lotion or toothpaste on an airliner.
Yeah? So?
I have heard that occasionally one encounters an airport security procedure that does make sense.
But in this case, Grumman’s “guess” comes after several posts explaining the procedure in a way that does make sense.
International arrivals at Orlando International Airport have the same double-baggage-claim procedure, though thankfully not the double security. Fortunately, OIA (MCO) can more than handle its typically passenger volume, so neither wait is long.
Although this thread is mostly about commercial air travel, something can also be said about this nonsense at smaller General Aviation airports.
Those airports with security fencing (which is relatively few when you look at how many small airports there are) often have a keypad where you need to punch in a combination to open the gate. I could understand this for getting IN, but it’s often necessary to get out. Two things about this that are really stupid:
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90% of the time the combination is the local radio frequency. This is almost always publicly available information.
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If it is an unknown code, a person could be trapped INSIDE the airport if the facility is unattended. This has happened to me, and I was released by a local pilot who just opened the gate to let me out. And if that’s going to happen, what the hell is the point in the first place?