Once, when I was flying on stand-by, I missed a flight because it was full, and had to spend ~14 hours in the Honolulu airport, because I couldn’t afford to get a motel room, or anything else. All I had in my pocket was the return ticket. All I had was the water from the water fountain. The next flight I got the very last seat, and it was in the smoking section. Ugh. But, I took it. Fortunately, I was so exhausted from getting almost no sleep the previous day, I slept through the entire flight. It took hours to clear that shit out of my lungs.
This was 40 years ago.
If I don’t have checked in luggage I usually do one hour before take off.
On our recent trip home we were stood in the check in queue for two whole hours while nothing moved due to some problem with border control. The airline barely said anything about it, and when most other desks had cleared their queues ours had still barely moved. Ugh. But they did tell us that the flight wouldn’t be leaving without us.
I’m sure I sold my soul to the devil, but I did TSA PRE and CLEAR. I spend maybe 5 min going through security.
My soul wasn’t doing much anyway, but MAN is it nice to just breeze through without waiting.
Then I am in boarding group 38 where you are not allowed to carry anything more than your feelings onto the plane and your seat is behind the toilet. You have to get up every time someone wants to take a shit. I ain’t paying SHIT for a seat upgrade, fuck that.
idk the sheer volumes of shit what come out of me, i kind of prefer that seat
Crackpot tinfoil hat time: TSA telling you to be there so early when it almost never takes that long to get through security is a conspiracy by the airport stores to get you to eat, drink, and shop more than you otherwise would if you timed it better.
The most boring yet most common type of conspiracy: Nobody planned this situation, but now that it exists and somebody is making money from it, we are going to drag our feet “fixing” the “problem.”
I mean, maybe? Big corpo business certainly has the ear of our government agencies. I wouldn’t be surprised if the request was made, and granted for an extra, generally unnecessary hour added to the recommendation.
I live in a small town on an island with 8k people in it that has its own international airport. I arrive an hour before if I have checked bags, drop bags off, go home, pick up the family, drop them off at the airport, drop the car off next door at my work, walk back to the airport, walk through security and board the plane.
Nice, but that sounds like a hassle as well.
It sounds that way written down, but I suspect that the predictable easy access to the airport without large but unknown delays waiting for you really helps to ease the friction of each step and the anxiety leading up to them.
To make a stretch of an analogy, it kind of reminds me of my work situation. A few years ago I got a job with a new company that has the perfect location. It’s not just in my town but on my side of town. The drive is short and fun, like 6-7 minutes with most of that on a country road with turns and hills.
There’s no worry about getting back and forth, going home for lunch, running in on a WFH day to test on some hardware, leaving at the wrong time and getting stuck in traffic, etc.
I get the feel that the vibe with this airport on the island is similar.
fun fact, the four hour figure comes from average wait times during a rush at LAX and then, for some reason, got applied to every airport at all times.
It saved my ass in Incheon when I went to the wrong terminal, spent 30 minutes walking around, had to spend 30 minutes on a bus going to the correct one, spent 30 minutes in line, then got delayed by another 30 minutes at check-in due to visa concerns, it was close enough they put me in the priority lane for security and I got to the gate literally as soon as my section was boarding.
It’s a well-managed airport, it’s just too damn big.
Shout out to fucking Air Canada for keeping you standing in line for ages and then locking out all check-ins 2 hours before flight time without doing reschedules or refunds. Fuck you very much guys. If you’re travelling Air Canada I would definitely recommend getting there 4+ hours before.
Why would they do that? I’m so confused
As someone who had a dad with undiagnosed ADHD, I had the opposite problem (he refused mental health treatment because he was a Boomer). We were always late to everything. And because he was a Narcissist too it was always everyone else’s fault.
I prefer to get to the airport plenty early. I always have a book with me so I can just hand out and read without stressing about time.
They actually only starts check in 4 hours prior to the flight. Don’t ask me how I know, I don’t have a life.
That must differ depending on airline/airport. I’ve never been able to check in sooner than 2 hours before any flight I’ve ever taken
What the hell are you talking about? They say 2 hours, not 4.
This is why you buy lounges
45-60 minutes before boarding. The only reason to get there earlier is if you fly at dumb hours like really early in the morning or really late at night.
The airport won’t take luggage less than 45 minutes before the flight so that’s when I check in.
Some won’t let you check-in less than 45 minutes before your flight (or 60 for international). Only time I’ve missed a flight was because of that
Completely dead airport, got there 45 minutes before my flight, ended up missing the 45 minute check-in window by a couple minutes
They changed me to the next flight for free, and I just ended up having to wait around for a couple hours
This is out of thousands of flights the only time I’ve missed one. I usually plan to get there 60 minutes before my flight
That’s fully insane. Just standing there like “yep, technically you can’t get on that plane”
45 minutes before boarding, no?
