How late can I leave it to the airport?

DCFC79

At least a couple of hours, you might find its overkill when your at the airport but its better to be sure you get there on time, get parked and through security.

MothballsWallet

ibizafan wrote: »

My OH was really exasperated with me last year when we turned up at BHX even before security opened at 4am for an early flight! However, as others have said, I’d rather be much too early and relax with a nice flat white and toasted sandwich in Costa than be rushing. Just the way I am.

My wife and I are like your OH: sometimes she's booked on a 6 am flight from BHX to go and see her family (usually first of 3 flights) and we're often there on the last buses from Coventry to BHX (approximately 00:55) so we just find somewhere to sit and she catches some sleep.

(This is why I try and get her better flight times, but she's not so keen on through the night flights if she has to change, which is the norm flying from BHX.)

For LHR/LGW, we use the National Express coach and aim to get there for the flight before hers as we've been caught out by delays on the M40 before - even though we would have been in time for her flight otherwise.

iltisman

I agree with the comments about security delays at Manchester I set off planning to arrive 3 hours + before my departure time. Road works near the airport whittled that down to 2.5 hours . I checked in an walked to security to be faced with a complete shambles. Crowds of people jumping the line and I seemed to be going backwards in the line. Luckily the flight crew for my flight seemed to be having trouble too so I just reached my flight as boarding commenced.

LUHG1878

Pollycat wrote: »

Unless it's at MAN - this is a post from Tripadvisor Air Travel board last Saturday:

Thankfully I don't fly from Manchester, it sounds like a shambles!

pattycake

LUHG1878 wrote: »

Thankfully I don't fly from Manchester, it sounds like a shambles!

We live only 30 minutes from Manchester Airport so convenient for us. It seems it’s a victim of its own success. There has been building work going on for years and apparently a lot more changes in the pipeline.

We use the same taxi driver and he reckons they are making it more and more difficult for cars to pickup/drop off. The idea being that everyone uses public transport via the new train and trams they installed.

Sounds great but although we are geographically close, to use the train would involve a trip into Manchester and then another out to the airport. That’s not happening!

Pollycat

LUHG1878 wrote: »

Thankfully I don't fly from Manchester, it sounds like a shambles!

It often is, especially early in the morning when there are people for the early flights plus those (very sensible, imho) people who have arrived early for slightly later flights.
And during school holidays, it can be utter chaos.
We've seen people in the queue panicking because they are in danger of missing their flights and we've heard airline employees calling passengers on particular flights to come to the front of the queue.

So...dollythesheep, I can see you've logged on since asking the question and at that point you'd had almost 20 replies all telling you not to leave it to the last minute.
So - what have you decided?
To quote Dirty Harry - do you feel lucky?

Ganga

pattycake wrote: »

We live only 30 minutes from Manchester Airport so convenient for us. It seems it’s a victim of its own success. There has been building work going on for years and apparently a lot more changes in the pipeline.

We use the same taxi driver and he reckons they are making it more and more difficult for cars to pickup/drop off. The idea being that everyone uses public transport via the new train and trams they installed.

Sounds great but although we are geographically close, to use the train would involve a trip into Manchester and then another out to the airport. That’s not happening!

It is the same at Newcastle airport,drop off and collection is limited to a few mins and costs £1,seconds over and it goes up to about £3 and then up and up,the days of going to the airport and watching the planes land and take off have now gone.:(

Tarry

Doshwaster wrote: »

I'm in the "get there as soon as possible" school of thinking. I don't understand those who deliberately plan on arriving at the last possible minute. I'd rather be having a drink in the airport bar than getting stressed while stuck in traffic or waiting for late public transport to turn up.

Totally agreed.:T

zagfles

lea2012 wrote: »

I second (or third) the comments about Manchester. We flew at 10am last Saturday from T3 and it was a nightmare!
We arrived at check in at 7am and sailed through it with only 5 couples in front of us. Got to departures and what a scrum!
We'd booked fast track but the security staff were moving people from standard to fast track if they were being called to board. Some airlines such as Air France did have horrendous queues at check in so I understand moving people if they arrived on time but there were a few travellers that admitted they had cut it too fine but the were moved in front of us for free to get them through on time!
Mix in biometric scanning for certain flights and people arriving with boarding cards issued by airlines that wouldn't scan and it was a complete disaster, it took us almost an hour to get through and that was in the 'fast lane'.

Yes, Manchester is a bit of a nightmare at the moment, queues can be long, but when they are staff do come down the queue asking if anyone has an imminent flight and they "fast track" them if they do. So you get "fast tracked" for free if you cut it fine! Or if you've been delayed through no fault of your own.

So wouldn't worry about it too much. We usually allow 90 mins or so if travelling with hand luggage only.

Be aware that Manchester have very strange rules on what a liquid is - they think solid deodorants, including solid crystal like Pitrok are liquids. Or at least their machines see them as liquids. If they detect such "liquids" in your hand luggage, your bag gets diverted for a manual search which can take ages as you're in a queue behind utter idiots with tubs of yogurt, cans of beer etc in their bags.