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.
My dad almost had a heart attack when I told him my flight was in 2 hours. Check in ended up taking 30 minutes and then I just waited for my flight.
The airport won’t take luggage less than 45 minutes before the flight so that’s when I check in.
45 minutes before boarding, no?
I’ve never flown in the US; I live in the EU and generally aim for 2 hours if I have checked baggage, 1.5 hours if not. That usually causes me to still have significant waiting time after the security check, but better safe than sorry.
Airport and airline dependent. I’ve waited an hour and a half to check my car seat for a budget airline.
TSA are equal opportunity haters and don’t care if you got to the airport two hours ago and your flight is in 30 minutes. They tell you to get in their line 2 hours before your flight and by god sometimes they are gonna make you wait two hours.
Edit: oh yeah also waited an hour becuase my budget airline wouldn’t let me print boarding passes and said “see agent” but didn’t staff any agents. Turns out they want to make sure your one year old is actually a baby and you’re not just a cheapskate trying to hold a twelve year old in your lap.
Tell me you’re from Denver without telling me you’re from Denver
Shit like this is why I avoid flying wherever possible. Such a miserable experience. I yearn for the day they finally somehow build that train tunnel across the Atlantic.
There is no way in the name of all that is good and holy in this fucking world I’m getting in a 3000 mile tunnel under the ocean.
Would it be any less safe than flying? Probably not. But for some reason I would rather fall out of the sky and die than be crushed and drown.
This is also why travelling by train can often be overall faster than plane, despite the train being slower. The station is in the middle of the city, no security check, the platforms are closer to the street, etc.
If the two locations are close maybe, but most of the time I would say theyre not remotely as fast.
You can fly from New York to LA in 6 hours. On a train it would take like 3 days
Only because US train system is biased toward freight.
Not complaining, it is what it is.
That said, I don’t see any pragmatic way to build passenger high-speed rail across the US. Every state would want it to run for them - otherwise they won’t support it. Then every city, etc.
Edit: for straight shots (point-to-point) across vast distances I don’t see train ever matching planes (like NY to LA)
Depends on what type of train it is. A passenger aeroplane travels around 800 km/hr, a ‘typical’ train about 150-200.
However, the highest average speed of a commercial train is reached by the Fuxing, which goes 320 km/hr, enabling to go from Beijing to Nanjing (1,020 km) in 3.2 hours. The Shanghai maglev used to go faster, about 430 km/hr. So a train can certainly be faster than a plane on mid-long distances if we take pre-flight time into account.
An experimental Maglev, the L0 Series, managed to go 600 km/hr. At that speed, you’re honestly directly competing with planes at long distances.
Meanwhile Amtrak trains: 74mph, unless you’re on the Acela, then top is 150mph.
Okay yea “often” was bit of an exaggeration on my part
I suspect DekSomBoon is talking about sensible countries
If, in this context, “sensible” means “smaller than half of Texas” maybe…
100% I’ll just aim to be at the station 15-30min before boarding and even then I’m usually early
I’ve been through a small handful of airports in North America. Definitely far from the most traveled, but I’d guess more traveled than the average person. I’ve never spent more than an hour getting through security and getting to my gate, even in quite busy times.
Four hours to me seems like quite antiquated advice. The security process alone has been really streamlined in the last ten or so years.
As early as my wife will allow. Hurry up and wait is just how life is to me and I have no issue sitting in a chair patiently… My wife does not feel the same and I’m okay with that, we understand how each other feels so we just leave when she says it’s okay lol.
Two hours is plenty. Never missed a flight and I’ve been on many dozens, unfortunately. If I want to eat, drink, or shop beforehand, pretty much anywhere is cheaper than an airport, so I’ll do it elsewhere.
Once in Seattle I showed up at the airport 3 hours early, didn’t realize there was a big game that had gone in the day before, and only baaaarely made it to my flight on time. Wasn’t even international.
It can definitely happen, especially in large cities. I suppose I’ve mostly combined luck with my laziness.
It’s also why I greatly prefer small airports, the smallest of which was literally a single room made of corrugated tin and little else. My flight left half an hour early.
Yeah small airports are great. Where I’m at now the local airport is pretty small, flights only go to/from Stockholm. They’re rarely even full I could probably just show up and grab a ticket like a fancy bus half an hour before takeoff. Sometimes there is a little stall selling local honey that’s just honor system nobody operates it and there isn’t any camera or anything just a wooden table and a paper with payment info lol
Sounds like I need to spend time in Sweden. My wanderings have been primarily equatorial.
I like to get there about 45 minutes before the flight. Usually the only thing the ticket agent will say to you is “run”… I am not a big fan of small talk or waiting.
Huh, we always get to the airport 45 minutes before, at one of the largest airports in the world, and no one ever says that. 45 minutes is plenty of time to get to your flight on time. People that get there several hours before are just wasting a lot of time.
I love my local small airport. I park the car 30 minutes before departure and have time for a morning espresso before boarding.
In Denmark, the official recommendation is 2h, most people do 60-90 minutes, and it seems to work fine.
Granted, the airports here tend to be significantly smaller and the people fewer, but I still say that better organization (AKA optimizing more for user experience rather than 100% only for squeezing every penny out of everyone) and less understaffing are crucial factors as well.
Have you flown Kastrup lately? Security lines are 2h now after they got complaints from some kind of agency. Everything is by the book and gets double checked.
Given that your dad had to pay for the plane tickets and probably won’t get any refund if you miss it, and flying is fucking expensive, I side with your dad on this.
On my way out, from my normal airport, I’ve got it timed pretty well so that I leave my house 90 minutes from boarding and I’m through security with 15-30 minutes to spare.
On my way back, from the scary unknown airport, I like to arrive at least 2 hours before boarding, because who knows what kind of crazy hoops you’re going to have to jump through.
I used to live in a place with a terrible airport, so I was conditioned to arrive 2 hours earlier for domestic and 3 hours for international. You can arrive an hour before at my local airport where I am now, but big events in the city seriously mess it up so I’ve stuck with my usual 2 hours.
I aim to get there ridiculously early, and have a beer or coffee while I wait. There have been times when the airport train was cancelled, so I want to know that I have time to use an alternative route.
Once me and my wife discovered the magic of airport lounge bars, we appreciate the time before departure.
Had one time we were going to meet a friend before heading to the airport. A semi caught fire and shut the interstate down for a few hours in both directions. We didn’t see our friend but we made our flight, it was a bit close though
