Getting to the airport stupidly early?

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We are flying with Tui on Tuesday from Gatwick Airport. Our flight is at 6.15am. I know you’re supposed to get there 2/3 hours early, but due to the disruption DH wants to get to the airport at 1.30am. Is that a little excessive?! Or Aibu?

I flew Stockholm-Manchester yesterday and there were loads of people waiting outside the airport, as they didn't let you in to the airport building unless you have 3 or less hours before your flight. Once inside everything ran very smoothly. They only implemented this very recently after having problems with crowding inside the terminal, but if people just avoided getting to the airport 4-5 hours before their flight it would be much less of an issue inside.

If you do want to get there early, get there 3 hours before, but not any earlier as you will just be adding to the problem.

I flew out of Gatwick on Wednesday. Arrived two hours before my flight. I was through security with 90 minutes to spare.

The queue to actually get into the security area was a bit slow, but once you got in it moved really quickly. The queues at Pret Costa were a different story though!

Check when your bag drop opens. When we flew recently we arrived 3hrs ahead but weren't able to drop bags until 2hrs prior to flight.

So it might be a complete waste of time!

If you need to check in / drop luggage, check in the website what time the desk opens. I suspect you might be sat there for three hours doing nothing.

I'm there same day for an early morning flight. Will be there two hours before. Don't three flights in the last few months (all out of school holidays), every time security was empty and the post security terminal was RAMMED

www.tui.co.uk/destinations/info/bag-drop-made-easy
You could book a hotel, and drop your bags off the afternoon before.

otherwise it’s 3 hours before

I am always early. I take into account traffic, delays if accident or roadworks, would rather be early and sit in the car for a bit of walk around outside than panic about missing flight because of delays.

I've done two flights over the last couple of months from Manchester and LBA. Both times they were early morning flights and we arrived 3.5 hours before (mainly due to allowing extra time in case of traffic/getting parked etc). On both occasions Jet2 opened the bag drop slightly early, although other companies didn't seem to do this. The queues were long at LBA but everyone got through and they pulled people to front if it was nearing their flight time.

They were asking people who had arrived super early for their flights to wait outside until it was three hours before, so I wouldn't bother getting there much earlier than that. It's that which is causing the issues.

I paid a fiver each for premium security at Gatwick,less of a scrum.

Baggage drop is opening at least three hours ahead.

You won't be able to check in that early so it seems a bit pointless.

Personally I would book an airport hotel the night before (so you can get as much sleep as possible) and get to the terminal 3 hours before your flight. You can then check in, get through security and have coffee/breakfast in the airport before boarding.

There will be very little, if anything, open that early in the terminal.

Bag drop usually opens two hours before so if you are there that early there will be a lot of hanging about

The companies themselves are causing the problem, our recent flight we had three lots of instructions, one to arrive 2 hours early, one 2.5 hours early and the last one 3 hours early. And two hours before security (which is a different thing altogether).

Turned out bag drop only opened 2 hours before anyway, so why are they telling people (RyanAir) to get there 3 hours early?!

Luckily we had a coffee and sat about and were third in the bag drop queue. About an hour later it was mayhem and would have been more stressful.

As per usual ordinary people are being blamed for the companies inefficiency and laying off of staff, as if anyone wants to go really early and sit around in a boring terminal by choice!

Ooh tell me more?

We flew out of Manchester last week. Got there 3 hours before and had no problems at all. Time for food and drink and some duty free shopping. X

Toke army made me chuckle... I should think you'd need one in that chaos 🚬

Just a heads up that as others have said, even if you arrive very early, there’s no guarantee you can check in. When I flew recently you couldn’t check in til 2 hours before your flight (heathrow) so see what your airline/ airport is saying. Otherwise you’ll be waiting to check in and trust me, you’ll be doing enough waiting afterwards!

A little early. I'd say 2:30am to 3am.

My DH is also a bit of a Mr Worst Case Scenario but I don’t think he would go this early!

I think at Bristol fast track security is about £5-7 so really worth it unless you are a big family of course in which case it might start to get a bit pricey both ways.

I'm flying from Birmingham with Tui next Monday. We are able to drop our bags in between 2-9 on the Sunday before. Due to that we are staying in the hotel on site, so I'm hoping the Monday will be slightly less stressful. We fly at 6am.

Too early in my opinion. Have a lovely holiday.

Pay extra for fast track security. It’s the security queues which are taking forever.

Security at Gatwick doesn't open until about 3am, as far as I'm aware. So you might not even be able to go through any earlier than that.

Agree with others that people arriving 4/5 hours early are largely causing these issues. If everyone arrived 2-3 hours before their flight, things would be much better.