Comment by q3k
2 days ago
Wait, people actually show up 3 hours before their flight?
I try to make it 1 hour before, and that's only because of bag drop off deadlines. I know plenty of light travellers that show up 15-30 minutes before departure, basically at gate close time.
(disclaimer: in the EU)
American airports are inefficient. Unless you're flying from a rural airport, expect long security lines. Even with TSA precheck it can take 30 minutes. I also recently found out it is not always open (only during core hours).
Also we don't have good mass transportation. If you're in EU, Asia you can take a train and be pretty certain you'll get there on time (barring a big event). In the US...a crash on the interstate can wreck your day. A sporting event can cause huge traffic jams on the main arterial road. So I to leave my house early enough for the 2/3 hour "before the flight" to pad for that.
My recent international flights were out of Mexico, London, Hong Kong and security lines are short. I was expecting some kind of secondary check point (Having said that I recall flying out of Toronto and it was like Disney world line)
A lot of US airport inefficiency is self-inflicted:
1. no transit terminals so everyone has to do full immigration
2. no international one-stop-security, so every international arrival with a connection (except those pre-cleared) have to redo it
UK airports are also guilty of #2
Security checkpoint times can vary widely in the States. As can the transportation to get to the airport (traffic, public transport, parking, shuttle). And don't get me started on kids and family members who don't travel often.
Three hours is totally unnecessary but the asymmetric risk of missing a flight vs posting up with a beer and a gameboy tilts things toward an earlier arrival.
It's refreshing to travel from a regional airport though.
Also depends on the person. I am brown, have a long beard, and wear a head cover. Almost every time I fly in the US I get a pat down, my bag manually searched, or a canine sniff. I budget extra time for it.
Oh yes, of course you should be harassed at the airport every time because of that one terrorism twenty five years ago.
We also spent 20+ years in various "Middle Eastern" countries, so that hasn't gone away for a lot of people that were around for 9/11. :-/
Hey, it’s actually because of that extra scrutiny that it hasn’t happened again, right? /s (double /s i am being totally sarcastic here)
They're not the only one, we're all harassed at the airport every time. Going through the clownshow of TSA (which STILL fails the vast majority of its audits) wasn't the last of it, now they're doing facial scanning at the gate.
Glad you can brush off the death of 3000 innocent people so easily
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Ugh, I hate that for you.
Are you Sikh, by chance? If so, what do you do with that little knife you carry when you fly? I’ve never thought about that when I had the opportunity to actually find out.
The knife is called a Kirpan, official TSA policy is there is no policy, it’s at the groper’s, pardon, screening officer’s discretion. https://www.tsa.gov/travel/security-screening/whatcanibring/...
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Just to add the the anecdotes: In my experience over ~20 years flying out of Newark and Philadelphia, 1 hour is enough 75% of the time, 2 hours is enough 95% of the time, and 3 hours is enough almost 100% of the time (I have once had three hours go by from walking through the front doors to the gate). That doesn't mean you always show up 2 or 3 hours ahead though - you adjust your estimate by time of year, time of day, and international vs domestic.
Limited experience, but yes, ~2 hours does seem to be enough most of the time, adjust to more if it's a busy day / week for various reasons. (holidays, big sporting events, etc)
Very much depends on the airport. Before I was an experienced traveler, I used to show up at O’Hare in Chicago 3 hours early because who knows how long the security lines will be. It was overkill, but gave me piece of mind.
At some point I took a job that required significant travel, and I learned to cut things much closer. Usually not less than 45 mins. But if I’m flying internationally I’ll still show up at least 2 hours early.
I too mostly fly out of O'Hare. Once I got global entry, I was a reliable 45-60 minutes before wheels up guy. I have never had Precheck take longer than 15 minutes.
I'm also an O'Hare flyer and the biggest time vampire you face there isn't long security lines, it's the four-mile walk to your gate lol
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In the US, I usually show up about an hour before. A little less if I'm traveling alone, but holiday are a disaster at American airports.
Once, I showed up two hours before a flight a few days after Christmas. I had a lapchild, so we needed to check in with a person and not use the kiosks.
We stood in line for 90 minutes, then stood in the security line for 30 minutes and missed our flight. They couldn't rebook my family for a week. We rented a minivan and drove 1800 miles, without our luggage.
In Germany as soon the Deutsche Bahn is somehow involved you better make it even longer than 3h as soon as the long distance train network is involved.
The punctuality of the trains is incredibly poor. And the chances are above zero to end up at a train station in the middle of bmfck nowhere.
Not my first time spending a night at Frankfurt Airport. But not within the comfy sterile zone after check-in... more like sitting in front of the small overpriced 24/7 supermarket.
Do you book the train with your airline? Not sure if that’s a possibility but you should definitely check. In that case they should offer you a hotel for the night.
Only works with the "premium" airlines.. usually not with the budget ones.
I'm in EU and I aim to show up around 2.5 hours before the departure. At least 30-40 minutes minimum is required to drop off the checked-in bags, because there are usually only 2 operators per whole flight, so unless you are the first in a queue (meaning you got 3-4h in advance, nullifying the advantage). Then hopefully it's around 10-20 minuted for carry-on luggage, and then between 0 to 1 hour for passport control by the second slowest public servants in the country (first ones are the customs on land borders, those often just stop working at all for hours). Of course in about half of cases I end up passing all that in half the time and sit at the gate afterwards, but the other half of the cases I'm glad that I've budgeted the extra time. And being early at the gate also means that I get to board early, meaning less standing and a more or less guarantee that my backpack will fit in the overhead bins. I was once late to board and had to keep backpack on the floor between my legs, which wasn't comfortable.
So unless its an intra-EU flight, it's still 3 hours affair just to depart.
The most infuriating is flying to EU with my non-EU biometric passport. It has all my data and photo encoded in the chip, my remaining visa days count is in the system - let me just scan it at the automatic gates and speed up control! But no, fuck me I guess, go to the slowass line to the customs, where a sleepy officer will do the same thing as I would have done myself and simply swipe the passport through the machine and proceed with that info. And maybe try to bullshit me with some inane questions. "Oh, you don't remember an arbitrary number of letters and digits written in your ticket, and which one can read any time if needed? That's suspicious!".