6am flight from Gatwick

[bouncingbackhome]

We live 3 hours from Gatwick airport and have a 6am flight. How would you manage this as a family? DH, DD’s 16 and 14 and me.

Would a lounge work well? I don’t think a hotel would work as we would have to leave so early.

What would you do?

Definitely do twilight bag drop if you decide to stay at an airport hotel. BUT check your airline offers it, and exactly what time it opens (varies between airlines).

@Pelifor we are the complete opposites, I actively choose really early flights! Always find the airports less chaotic and less delays too (although have had a few short delays due to early morning fog but nothing more than about 15 minutes).
Plus I like to get to the destination, we are used to early starts and don’t feel like any of our days are ruined.
I hate flying so the sooner it’s over for me, the better 😂

Yes I've ruled out plenty of destinations which don't have a flight that suits me. There's no shortage of places I'd like to go so I just choose somewhere else.

These days I tend to book an afternoon flight and an extra night in the destination hotel which is nicer than an airport hotel.

Same here, we're going away later this week and the standard flights in the package arrived at 11 pm and set off back at 10 am, but I could change them to fly out early in the morning and fly back in the early evening, meaning we have 1.5 days extra 'holiday' for the same number of nights away and on the first day we'll be able to have a nice lunch at our destination and spend the afternoon at the beach or pool rather than spending it getting ready at home and travelling before arriving and falling into bed. Definitely worth the early start in IMHO.

We're doing an early flight this summer, similar times and travel. We are doing twilight check in the evening before and airport hotel.
Earlyish breakfast in the hotel, short walk to the airport, straight to security. We have to check on the amount time before the flight we need to be there but anecdotally it's 40 minutes.
Stops any concerns about traffic and we won't be up most of the night.
Full breakfast in the hotel rather than crap airport food too.