A couple of weeks ago, I went to Haneda Airport to pick Dirty Shoes up. Standing in front of the panel of flights scheduled to arrive that day, I looked under the flight status for her flight and it read “Arriving.” So, I thought it would be a matter of minutes before she makes her way out since she had no luggage checked in.
However, some 30 minutes later, her flight status was still “Arriving.” That was really odd because I thought “Arriving” meant that the flight is landing soon, and why would the plane be circling the skies for 30 minutes without landing? I looked at the panel of statuses on other flights and saw some that says “Landed,” and some “Arrived” and got even more confused because I couldn’t figure out the difference between the two.
Since I had some time, I decided to Google for the answer and finally understood that none of the statuses indicate flights about to arrive. “Landed” means that the flight has just touched ground and is moving toward the gates, “Arriving” refers to flights already landed and parked at the gates waiting for passengers to alight. “Arrived” means that everyone should have cleared the customs and have exited the boarding area.
So, the flow of the statuses would be: Landed→Arriving→Baggage Available→Arrived
Now you know you don’t have to rush to receive people when the status just says “Landed.”
