What time should you arrive at the airport? Well, for international flights, the general advice used to be at least an hour and no more than three hours.
These days, for various reasons, many airlines are requesting that you arrive even earlier than three hours – although, in my experience, that can just mean hanging about waiting for check in to open.
The reason I’m raising this is that passengers of British budget carrier EasyJet have been warned that they’ll be turned away if they arrive less than 30 minutes before their flight. The penalty is paying an £80 “rescue fee” to get on to another flight (unless you’ve insured yourself against late arrival, which costs £7.50).
I reckon that’s fair enough, and especially so for a no-frills airlines that offers cheap fares based on its own ability to operate at lower costs than their full-service rivals. On-time departures and arrivals, and the quick turnaround of aircraft, are part of their business plan.
On some routes, and with some airlines, early arrival is a security issue.
Trying to go through security 30 minutes before take-off time is, in my opinion, cutting it really fine — but I like to arrive early. I’d rather be killing time at the airport than be anxious about missing the flight.
The efficiency of the checking in process actually relies on people like me – who get to the counter and out of the way in plenty of time. But, then again, when I’m flying my preferred airline and its partners I have a high enough frequent-flyer status that gets me into the business lounge, even when I’m flying in economy class.
