To want to arrive at the airport 2hrs before flight?

[scarletslass]

DP, DD(3), Mil and I are flying from Bristol airport soon, on a 6am flight. We live about an hour away. I think we need to get there the airport's recommended 2hours before the flight, DP thinks we need about an hour and a bit. I want to get there early to be able to dress DD (hoping she'll stay asleep in the car), get some breakfast and generally not be in a panic about delays, rushing etc. Who's right?

Gosh those reviews of Bristol Airport are fairly damning! We live in North Gloucestershire but use Heathrow instead as it is an equal drive if your flight is timed correctly and the facilities are a million times better. Bristol airport badly needs a better link road from the M5. We tend to go for late morning flights now or mid afternoon as security is a lot quieter and you can avoid rush hour drives to get there.

Definitely 2 hours, even at 6 am.

Bristol has expanded its security area recently and it's pretty quick to get through, even at busy times.
However, there are additional flights in the summer.
If you have luggage to check in, Easy Jet and Ryanair always seem to have long queues and their gates are miles from the main hub of the airport!

Well, DP has now booked fast track, so a partial concession there (although he sees it as a way to make him right?!). Still "discussing" actual times, but some success thanks to your comments!

Just checked my travel documents and check in shuts 60 mins before the flight

Flying to another part of the UK I give an hour.

Internationally 2 hours.

Maybe hour and a half as compromise?

For short haul I'd aim for two hours if I had to do bag drop. Recently security has taken much longer. And bonus if it isn't - time to go and get a meal deal for breakfast on the plane, water, a hot drink, some sweets and a magazine. And time to have a toilet stop too.

If I had no bags then I'd get there with less time.

For long haul we aim for 2-3 hours.

Flew from Bristol airport on the 9th of May. If you are using Silver Zone parking allow 30 minutes for this, as the queue was out the door at 5am. 15 minutes to drop bags with Easyjet and then another 15 minutes or so to get through security and we were quick as we had a special assistance passenger with us. We were also called for our flight 40 minutes before our scheduled departure. All in all a very stressful start to the day. Please allow the 2 hours at least. I've learned my lesson

I am with you, I always aim to arrive at least 2 hours early.
last time that was a good thing, as I smoked the last of my weed in London and fell asleep on the airport train and woke up in Burgess Hill..:)

But because I had aimed to arrive so early there was no problem!

I never understand the logic of people who think “oh an hour before will be fine.”

Why risk the stress, faffing around at home for the sake of another hour when you can be there two hours before and relax in numerous bars/coffee places etc at the airport? You have to be at the airport at some point, no getting away from it. So just be there earlier and chill.

Puppy you obviously find getting up at 3am and wrangling sleep deprived toddlers much more relaxing than I do!

We do allow the stated time, but I don't struggle to understand why some people choose a bit more sleep over a 4am arrival and an extra hour of "chill time" at 5am.

Don't get the logic of leaving more time for an international or intercontinental flight. In either case the security queue is exactly the same as that for a domestic flight.

Hope you got your flight without too much stress anyway. My parents went on hols yesterday...except after several hours delay it was all cancelled due to the atm strike. We fly next week and I'm worried about what to tell the kids if that happens to us!

Last month we flew from Stansted and it took us an hour to get through security. The queue was not too long but they were searching quite a few bags very thoroughly mine was sixth in the line to be searched and they did not do anything with any urgency.

Frazzled - in my experience they tend to close boarding earlier

Mismatched, is getting up an hour later at 4am and wrestling with a toddler a whole lot better then?

• disclaimer - I haven’t actually travelled by plane since 1998 due to crippling fear of flying, so this is all just theory to me.

I think it depends on who you are flying with.

No it doesn't Forall. It depends on the airport.

Op - read my post, I was on a 5AM fight 2 weeks ago, which was the first flight out of Bristol then. Your 6AM flight won't be the first flight!

Tell your DH to give his head a wobble!

I almost missed a flight from Bristol this time 2 years ago, driving from Trowbridge, because the road was closed through Chew Magna, it took 45 minutes to find a car parking space in the long stay area and only 3 security banks were open. Don't cut it fine.