By All Star Limo Service | Chicago’s South Suburbs Limo Specialists

We’ve done thousands of airport pickups at O’Hare over the past 10+ years. Terminal 1, Terminal 2, Terminal 3 — those are all relatively predictable. You track the flight, the plane lands, you time your approach to the lower level, the passenger walks out with their bags about 20–30 minutes after landing. Done.

Terminal 5 is a completely different situation.

The first time a new driver handles a Terminal 5 international arrival pickup without proper preparation, they usually make the same mistake: they show up at the curbside 30 minutes after the flight lands, thinking the passenger will be walking out any minute. Then they wait. And wait. And wait. Forty-five minutes pass. An hour. The passenger finally appears and the driver is frazzled, the vehicle has been circling or staging in the wrong area, and the whole experience falls apart.

That’s not how we do it. This article explains exactly what happens inside Terminal 5 after an international flight lands at O’Hare — and the specific way All Star Limo handles every scenario so our clients walk out and find us exactly where we said we’d be, no matter what.

What Terminal 5 Actually Is

Most Chicago-area residents who use O’Hare regularly have never set foot in Terminal 5. That’s because Terminal 5 is the international terminal — physically separated from Terminals 1, 2, and 3, located approximately one mile east of the main domestic complex. You cannot walk between Terminal 5 and the other terminals. You take the Airport Transit System (ATS) people-mover.

Every international flight arriving at O’Hare that requires U.S. Customs and Border Protection processing lands at Terminal 5. That includes:

• All flights from Europe, Asia, the Middle East, Africa, Latin America, and most of the world
• Emirates from Dubai, Air France from Paris, KLM from Amsterdam, Cathay Pacific from Hong Kong, Lufthansa from Frankfurt, SWISS from Zurich, and dozens more
• Most Delta, United, and American international arrivals (some exceptions for pre-cleared routes)

A handful of routes — certain flights from Canada and Ireland — arrive pre-cleared, meaning passengers already cleared U.S. customs before departure and may arrive at Terminals 1, 2, or 3. But the vast majority of international arrivals come through Terminal 5.

For a limo service, this matters enormously. The process a passenger goes through after their plane lands at Terminal 5 is completely different from what happens after a domestic landing — and it directly determines when and where we position our vehicle.

What Happens After the Plane Lands at Terminal 5

Here is the actual sequence your passenger goes through after their international flight touches down at O’Hare:

1. Deplaning and walking to the CBP processing area Depending on which gate the aircraft parks at, this walk can take anywhere from 5 to 20 minutes. Some international gates at Terminal 5 are close to the processing area. Others are at the far end of the concourse and require a long walk through corridors.

2. U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Primary Inspection This is where things get unpredictable. Every arriving international passenger must clear CBP before exiting the secure area. What happens here depends on several factors:

• Global Entry holders can use dedicated automated kiosks. The process often takes as little as 5–10 minutes from reaching the kiosks. This is the fastest path through.
• Mobile Passport Control app users get a dedicated lane that’s faster than the standard queue. It’s free and available on any smartphone.
• Standard immigration line (no trusted traveler program) — this is where wait times become genuinely variable. On a slow afternoon with one or two international flights arriving, it’s 20–35 minutes. On a peak Sunday evening when six wide-body aircraft land within the same 45-minute window — which happens regularly at O’Hare — the standard line can stretch to 60, 75, even 90 minutes.

The critical thing to understand: we have no visibility into where your passenger is in this process. We can see the flight landed. We know what time it touched down. But whether they have Global Entry, whether they’re in the fast lane or the standard line, whether CBP has one booth open or twelve — none of that is visible to us or to the passenger while they’re in the processing area.

3. Baggage claim inside Terminal 5 After clearing CBP, passengers collect their checked luggage from the baggage carousels on the lower level. International flights often have heavy checked bags — multiple large suitcases for travelers who’ve been abroad for weeks. The bags take time to come out. Add another 10–25 minutes here depending on the airline.

4. Exiting through the customs exit doors After baggage, passengers hand their CBP declaration form to a customs officer and exit through sliding glass doors into the public area — the Greeting Area.

Total time from wheels-down to walking out: typically 45 to 90 minutes. With Global Entry and light carry-on luggage, experienced travelers can occasionally get through in 35–40 minutes. With standard immigration and checked bags on a busy Sunday? Ninety minutes is genuinely common, and two hours is not unheard of.

This is the number that defines everything about how we approach Terminal 5 pickups.

Terminal 5’s customs exit doors — the sliding glass doors every international arrival walks through. Our chauffeur is always on the other side of these doors with your name sign.

The Two Pickup Options at Terminal 5 — And Why We Recommend One Over the Other

At Terminal 5, there are two ways to meet your passenger: curbside on the lower level or Meet & Greet inside the Greeting Area.

Curbside Pickup — Lower Level, Door 5D

The lower level curbside at Terminal 5 is the ground transportation area — taxis, rideshare, limos, and shuttles all stage here. The City of Chicago does not allow livery vehicles to idle at the curb indefinitely. Our chauffeur stages in a nearby holding area and pulls to Door 5D when the passenger confirms they’re outside with bags.

This works fine when the timing is smooth and the passenger knows exactly what they’re doing. The process:

1. We receive confirmation the flight has landed
2. We instruct our chauffeur to stage nearby (not pulling up immediately)
3. Client texts us when they have bags and are ready at Door 5D
4. Our driver pulls to the curb in 5–10 minutes

The vulnerability in this approach: the passenger has to know to look for Door 5D specifically, has to have cell signal immediately upon exiting (sometimes spotty in the lower level), and has to communicate accurately about where they are. After a 10-hour international flight, not every client is operating at peak clarity.

Meet & Greet Inside the Greeting Area — Our Recommended Option for Terminal 5

The Greeting Area is the public waiting space just past the customs exit sliding glass doors. This is where families and friends wait for arriving international passengers. And this is where we position our chauffeur for every Terminal 5 Meet & Greet booking.

Here’s what it looks like in practice: your chauffeur is standing in the Greeting Area, holding a sign with your name on it, directly in front of the customs exit doors. When those doors slide open and you walk out into the public area, the first face you see is your driver’s face, your name is in their hands, and your bags are taken within seconds.

There is no wondering which door to go to. No text messages to send while managing three heavy suitcases. No hunting for a vehicle among dozens of other cars. You walk out of customs, and your ride is right there.

For international arrivals — especially clients arriving after long-haul flights, clients who aren’t frequent flyers, families with children, first-time visitors to Chicago, and VIP clients — Meet & Greet is the only option we truly recommend.

Our chauffeur at the Terminal 5 Greeting Area — name sign in hand, positioned directly in front of the customs exit doors before your client walks out.

The Part Nobody Talks About: What We Do When You Don’t Appear

Here’s a scenario we’ve handled dozens of times. The flight landed 75 minutes ago. Our chauffeur has been in position in the Greeting Area for 45 minutes. The customs exit doors have been opening and closing, passenger after passenger walking out, but not our client.

What do most limo services do at this point? They start calling. They send texts. They get anxious. Sometimes they move the vehicle or give up the position and try to reach the client from outside.

Here’s what we actually do, and why it works:

We don’t panic. We wait.

The reason is simple: if a passenger is still inside the CBP processing area, their phone is usually powered off or on airplane mode. They can’t receive calls or texts. There is nothing they can do to communicate with us. And there is nothing useful we can do by calling — it just adds to their stress when they finally clear and turn their phone back on to find six missed calls.

What we’ve learned from years of Terminal 5 pickups is this: the 45-to-90-minute window after an international flight lands is almost always explainable. A second immigration line opened slowly. The bags for their specific flight came out on the last carousel. There was a secondary inspection. These things happen — they’re not crises, they’re just the reality of international arrivals at one of the world’s busiest airports.

Our protocol:

1. Flight lands — we note the exact time
2. We give the passenger 75 minutes before any proactive contact attempt
3. If 75 minutes pass with no word, our dispatcher sends a single, calm text: “Hi [name], this is All Star Limo. Your chauffeur [first name] is waiting in the Terminal 5 Greeting Area with your name sign. No rush — just let us know when you’re through customs.”
4. We do not call repeatedly. We do not move the vehicle. We hold the position.
5. 9 times out of 10, that single text receives a reply within minutes: “Just cleared, grabbing bags now, be out in 10.”

The longest Terminal 5 wait we’ve had was 2 hours and 12 minutes from wheels-down to our client walking out. There had been a secondary CBP inspection — routine, but time-consuming. Our chauffeur was exactly where he was supposed to be. The client walked out, saw the name sign, and the first thing he said was: “I’m so sorry, I was terrified you’d left.”

We hadn’t. We don’t.

The Flights That Always Run Long at Terminal 5 — What We’ve Learned

After 10+ years of Terminal 5 pickups, we’ve developed a real understanding of which routes tend to produce longer customs processing times and which ones move quickly. This isn’t official data — it’s pattern recognition from our own operational experience.

Routes that historically move through CBP faster:

• Flights from Canada and Ireland (many pre-cleared — passengers may not even clear at Terminal 5)
• Flights from UK airports, particularly Heathrow (large Global Entry adoption among frequent US-UK travelers)
• Late-night arrivals (fewer simultaneous flights, shorter lines)
• Midweek arrivals (Tuesday and Wednesday tend to have lighter international traffic)

Routes and timing that historically produce the longest waits:

• Sunday afternoon/evening international arrivals — this is the single worst window. Multiple wide-body aircraft from Europe and Asia all land within the same 2–3 hour window as passengers return from weekend travel. We’ve seen standard immigration lines take 75–90 minutes at peak Sunday afternoon.
• Major holiday return travel — Thanksgiving Sunday, Christmas/New Year return days, and spring break peak return weeks
• Flights from countries with lower trusted traveler program adoption — more passengers in the standard line means the standard line moves slower
• Simultaneous arrivals of multiple wide-body aircraft — when an Emirates A380, a Lufthansa 747, and a Cathay Pacific 777 all land within 20 minutes of each other, the CBP hall fills up fast

When we know a client is arriving on a Sunday evening flight from Europe, we build this into our planning before we ever leave our base. We don’t schedule the pickup as if it will take 45 minutes. We plan for 75–90 minutes and are genuinely pleased when it’s faster.

A Common Scenario We’ve Navigated Dozens of Times

A client books a pickup for their family returning from a two-week European vacation. Two adults, two kids, six pieces of luggage. Flight from Rome, landing at Terminal 5 at 3:45 PM on a Sunday.

Here’s our exact approach for this booking:

Before the flight lands: We confirm the flight number with the client at booking, monitor it for delays throughout the day, and brief our chauffeur on the expected timeline. We book a large SUV — the Cadillac Escalade or Chevrolet Suburban — because six bags and four passengers need the space.

At landing: Our chauffeur enters Terminal 5 and positions in the Greeting Area approximately 50 minutes after wheels-down. Not immediately — there’s no point standing for 90 minutes when we know the minimum realistic window is 45–50 minutes even for experienced travelers.

The wait: Our chauffeur has the name sign. He’s in position. He knows not to call, not to text, not to move. He’s patient because we’ve trained for this exact scenario.

When they come out: Six bags, four exhausted people, two kids who’ve been on an airplane since early morning Rome time. The last thing this family needs is to be met with confusion or stress. They see the name sign, the luggage is taken without being asked, the vehicle is waiting at Door 5D, and the drive from O’Hare to their south suburb home is quiet, comfortable, and takes about 45 minutes on I-294.

That’s the experience. That’s what we’re building every time we take a Terminal 5 booking.

What You Should Know Before Booking Terminal 5 Pickup

Whether you’re booking for yourself, a family member, or a business client arriving internationally at O’Hare, here’s what we’d want you to know upfront:

Give us your flight number, not just your arrival time. We track the actual flight, not the scheduled time. International flights get delayed, routes get changed, and the difference between a scheduled 4 PM landing and an actual 6 PM landing is something we need to know about before your chauffeur drives to O’Hare.

Tell us if your passenger has Global Entry. It genuinely affects our timing. A Global Entry traveler arriving on a standard European flight can sometimes clear in 35–40 minutes total. The same flight, same plane, without Global Entry on a Sunday afternoon — plan for 75–90 minutes. We adjust our chauffeur’s positioning window accordingly.

Book Meet & Greet for any client who is not a frequent international traveler. Curbside is fine for the seasoned business traveler who flies internationally six times a year and knows exactly what they’re doing. For everyone else — families, first-time visitors, VIP clients, international guests coming to Chicago for events or corporate visits — the Greeting Area is the only option that guarantees a seamless experience.

Don’t give your passenger a hard pickup time. Telling someone “your limo will be outside at 5:15 PM” creates false expectations and stress when customs takes longer than expected. Instead, tell them “All Star Limo will be waiting in the Terminal 5 Greeting Area with a sign — take your time through customs, they’ll be there.” That framing eliminates anxiety entirely.

Let us know about oversized or unusual luggage. Golf bags, sports equipment, musical instruments, large amounts of luggage — we need to send the right vehicle. An S-Class sedan is not the right vehicle for a family returning from a two-week vacation with six suitcases. An Escalade or Suburban is.

Why Terminal 5 Is Different From Everything Else We Do

Every other airport pickup at O’Hare is fundamentally predictable. We know when the flight lands, we know roughly how long it takes to get to baggage claim, and we position accordingly. The window from landing to the passenger walking out is usually 15–30 minutes for a domestic flight.

Terminal 5 requires something different: experience, patience, and a genuine understanding that the passenger has zero control over how long customs takes. A chauffeur who shows frustration, who makes the client feel like they’ve caused an inconvenience by taking longer than expected, who fails to hold their position in the Greeting Area — that chauffeur creates a bad experience for a passenger who is already tired from a long international flight.

We’ve trained for this. We’ve done it hundreds of times. We know which flights tend to run long. We know how to position, how to wait, and how to make the moment when a client walks out of customs feel effortless — because that moment, when they see their name on a sign held by a calm, professional chauffeur in a clean suit, is often the first moment of genuine relaxation they’ve had since their flight began.

That’s what we’re there for.

Book Your Terminal 5 Pickup with All Star Limo

If you or someone you know is arriving at O’Hare Terminal 5 from an international flight, we’re ready to handle it exactly as described above — with full flight tracking, patient Meet & Greet positioning, and a clean luxury vehicle waiting at Door 5D when your passenger is ready.

📞 Call or Text: (708) 998-6336 🌐 allstarlimoservice.com/book-online ✉️ Available 24/7

Use promo code ALLSTAR10 for 10% off your next booking.

We serve all O’Hare terminals, Midway Airport, Chicago Executive Airport (PWK), and DuPage Airport from our South Suburbs base — covering Orland Park, Tinley Park, Frankfort, Mokena, New Lenox, Lemont, and all of Chicagoland.

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