Even though the first flight is entirely domestic, when you check in at Philadelphia they'll check all of your documentation is in place to enter Costa Rica. So that may take a a few extra minutes unless you have some unusual situation.

(Unusual situation like the time I had to argue with United that Hungary was in Schengen and I didn't need a visa as a US passport holder.)

Your first leg is a domestic flight. I have not had any longer wait times for that when I have a 2nd leg that's international. All they do is check your passport at the gate if you haven't needed to show it for checking luggage.

Easy!

"Two different American Airlines agents have given me contradictory information."

As have we!

Sorry about that.

I treat it as a regular flight.

They'll check your passport at the gate. If you encounter staff before that, they'll probably check it too. At least, they are supposed to.

Sometimes you can't get your initial boarding pass for the domestic flight until your PP has been verified by airline staff.

Your luggage will be checked through, as your itinerary is all on the same ticket/reservation.

At CLT, you'll walk between your gates.

You might as well plan to arrive at PHL a little earlier than required so you don't worry.

I've never quite understood this idea of needing to arrive earlier for an international flight than for a domestic one - why?

If it's a long-haul flight on a wide-bodied jet, and the flight has its own dedicated check-in desk (rather than a check-in area shared between different flights) then one does want to be there early because it will take longer to process the number of passengers that are checking in. But other than that - why would one need to arrive earlier for an international flight, when one goes to the same check-in desk and through the same security lines as domestic passengers, and when the only extra formality is a passport scan which usually takes about ten seconds?

And why would there be a need to check in earlier for a domestic flight just because you are connecting to an international one?

(Some time ago a friend of mine was departing from tiny little Norwich Airport to connect to a long-haul flight in Amsterdam. His travel agent told him to arrive at Norwich at 3 am for his 6 am departure. He spent 90 minutes standing outside a locked terminal building!)

We make domestic to international flights fairly frequently and don't do anything special in terms of arriving for our flights. We usually have at least one bag to check, so our passports will be checked at that point, again going thru TSA (as we use them for ID's), and then again when we are boarding the international flight. We don't need to use them for the domestic portion. We've never had a problem doing OLCI for flights that are a combination of domestic and international, nor any problems printing our boarding passes in advance without verification of our passports. Just make sure you have all of your required personal info in your reservation at OLCI.

My question is: Since the first leg of our Connecting flight is domestic from Phila to New York to Rome. When checking in at Phila Airport do I check in at the Domestic end or International end??? Just trying to do away with the least amount of schleping through the airport.

You check in as if it is a domestic flight (because that is what it is) but depending on the airline I think you can drop you bags in either location.

It’s a domestic flight. Other than the 15 seconds the gate agent spends looking at your passport, it’s no different than flying from Philadelphia to anywhere else in the USA.

“In other words, do I need to arrive 2-3 hours before flight time or am I fine with what I normally do for domestic travel”

Well, you haven’t told us what you normally do. It sounds like you’re used to showing up less than 2 hours before your departure.

I wouldn’t.

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