Comment by csomar
2 days ago
The 3-hours is a recommendation so that the airline can "cover its ass". Air Travel got worse after Covid, especially for International travel. Domestic is less complicated but if you are travelling internationally, the security checks are a plenty and I have learnt my lesson to be at least 3 hours early. Most of the time, the time was wasted between passport/visa checks, slow check-in, buggy self-checkin so back to queue, slow security, slow passport checks, big airport -> takes lots of time to move around, etc.
I had a Turkey-China flights 3 months ago. I arrived at Istanbul international more than 3 hours early. Between all of what I described above, I arrived at my gate just 10-15 minutes before departure.
I am actually wondering about the lost opportunity cost to have these large expensive airports with all these shops and then leave passengers with no time to shop around.
My last two international arrivals back into the US were at ATL and JFK. Both times I had more than a three hour layover. Both times they were boarding my middling group when I got to my gate. Train broke down at ATL. Lines were super long and slow at JFK (both Global Entry and TSA). There’s no way I would book less than two hours these days unless I know there are many options for my connecting flight when things go south.