Nobody explains any of this, and everyone assumes you already know. Here is the whole thing, from booking to baggage claim, with no assumed knowledge and nothing skipped.
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Everyone wonders these. Almost nobody asks.
This is the part that frightens people most, and it should not. Delays and cancellations are ordinary - they happen to experienced travelers constantly. The difference is that experienced travelers know what to do in the first ten minutes. Now you can too.