6am flight strategy?

[JasmineAndSalt]

Flying with Jet2 from Stansted. Have kids aged 7 and 4.

I'm thinking maybe best to drive there and use the airport parking as a taxi quoted £280! It's about an hour's drive at that time.

How early to arrive? 2hrs? Any point arriving earlier or will we just be waiting for check in to open?

Worth booking a lounge?
Anything else which will make the ridiculous time easier? Barely seems worth trying to go to sleep.

Are there no hotels locally that do the park and shuttle bus service? I’m sure my in-laws use one…

we did a Luton flight at 6:15 yesterday morning - we did not need the 3 hours they recommended I would say if stansted similar two would be enough.. our 6 year old was so excited we didn’t really need to do anything different to normal though I did offer to buy a magazine (which I hate the plastic waste on so this is a treat for her!) if she was good with all the queues.

Flew from Stansted last week. Check ins were open 3 hours before flight and if you’re there when they open you avoid queuing or I did. Stansted you can park close to or even at the airport so would definitely drive.
Would not waste money on a lounge.

Arrive 3 hours before, that is fairly standard now. We flew from Manchester at 6am in May with 7 and 3 year old. They were fine actually. We had a bag loaded with snacks and iPad loaded with stuff for them to watch in case of queues. By the time we were through security, we had time for some breakfast and then were boarding. They were tired later on but coped fine. We travelled from home too as didn't want to go to a hotel the night before as they sleep better at home. Got to do it again in 2 weeks but this time we get a lie in as the flight is 7am!

Three hours before for check in. Personally I prefer to book an Airport hotel and check in the evening before then its straight through security in the morning. I wouldn't bother with a lounge in the current climate.

Holidayextras and get a hotel and parking package, kind of feels like you start the holiday a day early too

I would aim to arrive to the parking lot 2.5/3 hours early so you’re in the terminal before the 2h mark. Can you travel on hand luggage only? That would save you the check in queues.

A word of warning... we had a 7am flight from Stansted a few months ago, arrived 4 hours early due to all the disruption. We were SO tired that we went to the wrong departure gate at completely the wrong side of the airport!! We missed our flight 😭😭 we have sworn no more early flights! I know that doesn't help you re advice but just a warning to double check that both of you check the gate 😁

We're about an hour from Manchester and slightly closer to Leeds and always drive and park.

You could consider a hotel stay with combined parking but we've never bothered as we're fine getting up early and just have breakfast at the airport and sleep on the flight.

We went from Manchester few weeks ago, arrived about 2.5 hours before take off and the jet2 lanes for baggage drop off were open and completely empty security was a different story.

There were about 30 staff standing around doing nothing - they combine all their flights in one queue and have self service auto weigh scales just before drop off.

In my experience they will take your bag even if it's more than 2 hours before your flight, which is a good job because when we flew last year, it took about 90 mins to get through security and we wanted time to get breakfast, so needed to be there early.

We have a 6am Jet2 Stansted trip soon. We've booked the hotel next door (Radisson), stay included 15 nights parking and Jet2 do a twilight check in where you drop your bags the night before and then just go through security the next morning.

We flew with Jet2 from Stansted in May, 6am flight.

We stayed the night before in the Premier Inn.

Parked in the long stay car park, shuttle to the airport.

We check in on online, arrived at the airport at 3.15.

Had to wait 1/2 an hour for our bag drop to open.

Security gates didn't open until 4am, we were at the front of the queue, and it was very quick to get through.

We didn't book a lounge. There was a lot of seating in departures once we were through security etc, as we were one of the first flights out.

It did start to get busy at about 5am though.

First time we've flown from Stansted, we found it seamless - certainly compared to Gatwick.

This is all very helpful thank you.
I think probably not worth booking a hotel because we'd still have to get up around 3am, doesn't seem very worth it. But I'll check how much extra it is on top of parking.
I wish hand luggage only was a possibility but not with four of us!

Our hotel and parking is £236. It was £180 for just the parking separately. Once we've got rid of the big bags the night before it takes a lot of the stress away.