Comment by Yizahi

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!".