How early at the airport?

[SantaMonicaPier]

First flight in two years is booked and I need to sort my train to the airport. If the flight is at 12pm how early would you aim to arrive? Medium haul to a county which will be questioning most passengers ahead of boarding in my previous experience so I want to get there earlier rather than later. Will book a lounge so will have somewhere nice to relax. Trains currently available will get me there three hours or four hours ahead of my flight. Which would you go for?

Would have been helpful if you said in your op you don't have luggage. I'd go the 4 hours.

I'm that person regardless of the flight time I stay the night before to be at the airport.
I kind of start my holiday from that day and factor it in, nice evening meal, rest up and zero stress.

Weirdly the other side coming back I have no worries about turning up at the foreign airport a couple of hours before.

When we flew in October lack of bags made no difference - you had to go through bag check to show your covid passes etc.

Thanks again all. Not yet fully decided if I'm taking a hold case or not. Still tending towards four hours but I will book an airport lounge so have somewhere to sit and relax for a couple of hours even if I'm ultimately really early.

For train - it depends on frequency of trains, length of train journey and ease of getting alternative transport if there was a problem. For our cruise our train arrives 6 hours before sailing!

I usually aim for 3-3.5 hours before the flight if Heathrow (2 hours drive need to park car) and 2 hours for local airport (25 mins away, cab)

I'm early for everything though!

@SantaMonicaPier

I'm flying from Manchester, I need to get two trains there with a journey of 1.5 - 1.75 hours if they line up correctly. Cabin bag only probably which reminds me I won't need to check in at the airport and can go straight through security

I'd aim for 4 hours before. I wouldn't trust the trains at mo, delays and cancellations are rife. MCR is also a shocker for queues, security always a nightmare. I have friends who like to cut it extremely fine with airports but that's just stressful, it's nice to chill out in departures once you're through.

We flew from Manchester recently and it was an absolute nightmare. We'd already checked in but queued for over an hour to drop bags. Then the security queue was around an hour as well. We were at the airport about 2 1/2 hours before the flight and queued for the whole time.

We usually arrive a couple of hours before a fought fir check in. A lot of the time these days check in doesn't open until 3 hours max before a flight, even king haul.

However, we went long haul from Manchester at half term, arriving 2.5 hours early. Check in had only just opened but it was slow slow it took 1.5 hours to get through. And bag check/security were also slow. With half an hour remaining we spoke to the staff at bag check and we're pulled out of the queue and whizzed through quickly. No time for drinks and food, just enough time for a loo stop before boarding. A bit stressful at the time but least we didn't spend a fortune at the airport!

With public transport I'd allow extra time.

No hold luggage I'd say 2 hour max.

With that thinking, you'd probably miss around 50% of flights from Manchester @Abraxan.

It's hand luggage security that's the main bottleneck. I once took over 2 hours to get through all the queues for a domestic flight and only made it because it didn't board until 20 minutes after stated departure time.

Never less than two hours. However leaving Spain last month there were massive queues at passport control and for the first time ever I wished we'd got there sooner - was genuinely fearful we would miss the flight. I'll go for three hours next time.

@BarbaraofSeville

With that thinking, you'd probably miss around 50% of flights from Manchester *@Abraxan*.

It's hand luggage security that's the main bottleneck. I once took over 2 hours to get through all the queues for a domestic flight and only made it because it didn't board until 20 minutes after stated departure time.

Never missed a flight from Manchester yet though. 🤷🏻‍♀️