Landing at Los Angeles International Airport

What LAX is like

LAX is a horseshoe of terminals around a two-level roadway, and almost every flight from Asia arrives at the international building before the passengers scatter in different directions towards places that can be tens of kilometres apart. This city has no single centre, so how you leave the airport depends far more than usual on which neighbourhood you are heading to. Arrivals here feel busy in a sprawling way rather than a crowded one. Having data working from the moment you step outside is not a luxury.

On arrival

Switch the line on at touchdown and follow the signs to immigration, where the visitor queue is long and slow during the morning bank of transpacific arrivals. After customs, anyone connecting onward to a domestic flight has to re-check the bag and pass security again, which takes longer than most people allow for. If Los Angeles is your final stop, the decision point is at the exit doors, because app-booked cars are not collected at the kerb the way taxis are. Read the airport signage and the app's instructions together before you set off walking, and expect a short shuttle ride in between.

How far the airport Wi-Fi gets you

The Wi-Fi here is free in the American sense: a sign-in page with a promotion, then a window of time that runs out and has to be restarted. In the international building, when several wide-bodies land together, a few thousand people join the same network and the speed falls away noticeably. More to the point, the outdoor areas and the lot where cars collect passengers have essentially no Wi-Fi at all, and that is exactly where you need the ride app open and a driver on the phone. Leaning on airport Wi-Fi at LAX therefore fails at the one moment it matters.

Getting into town

The most common way out is an app-booked car, which uses a consolidated pick-up area away from the terminal kerb and a short shuttle ride to reach it. Taxis still collect at the kerb where staff direct you, and rental cars mean a company shuttle out of the airport zone. Travel in Los Angeles eats more data than in most cities, because the distances are long and the map stays open the whole way; an hour on the freeway with live traffic can run through several hundred megabytes. If you are heading north-west through the passes, there are short stretches where signal thins out, so download the area map before a long drive. Ride-hailing, parking apps and a music stream between them make this the leg that tests the plan.

What people ask about this airport

• App cars are not at the kerb — You ride a shuttle to a shared lot first, so always read the airport signage alongside the app's instructions.
• Domestic connections need time — After customs you re-check the bag and clear security again, and that takes longer than the schedule makes it look.
• Download before a long drive — Routes out of the basin through the passes have thin patches, so keep an offline map before you set off.