Gatwick South - check in time for 6.25am flight

keelyann

Hi, does anyone know how busy Gatwick S airport is around 5am - we don't want to get there earlier than necessary in the night and hoping it will be very quiet but I could be wrong and have never travelled so early before. Does anyone have any experience of this please and if an hour and a half would be long enough?

Thank you!

annieb64

We flew from there on 3rd July. Flight was at 7 a.m. We arrived at the airport at 4.30 a.m as for some reason couldn't check in online. Enormous queue. They pulled all the people for our flight out of the queue at 6 a.m. 

We checked in and then were told our flight was delayed by 9 hours! 
Daughter had a 6 a.m flight two days later. Was able to check in online.  Had time for leisurely breakfast before flying. 

onashoestring

Gatwick is recovering from the pandemic and is busy again . The Gatwick airport website advises passengers to arrive 2 hours before their flight .

If you are arriving by car and will be parking in the long stay car park you will also need to allow the time to get the shuttle to the terminal . 

https://www.gatwickairport.com/at-the-airport/flying-out/check-in/

soolin

I use Gatwick a lot and always allow the 2 hours they suggest , usually I’m through to departures within 40 minutes, but I’d prefer to be early rather than late. I also allow at least 30 minutes extra for parking. 

giraffe69

We used Gatwick South recently, arrived at 5.40 for a 7.50 flight. Although there was a queue it moved steadily and we were in the departure lounge by 6.30. The only shortcut I took was to pay £5 for priority through the bag/possessions/personal check. Not sure that was necessary but the whole experience was a lot better than a. I expected or b. the publicity suggested a couple of weeks before hand.

tightauldgit

keelyann said:

Hi, does anyone know how busy Gatwick S airport is around 5am - we don't want to get there earlier than necessary in the night and hoping it will be very quiet but I could be wrong and have never travelled so early before. Does anyone have any experience of this please and if an hour and a half would be long enough?

Thank you!

We did this last week at pretty much that time. It wasn't quiet, it was reasonably busy. We progressed through security without too much hassle though. 

If you've checked in online and don't need to drop bags then 90 mins is probably enough but you just never know. 

I would work on the assumption that 5am will be just as busy as 3pm and plan accordingly 

Exodi

soolin said:

I use Gatwick a lot and always allow the 2 hours they suggest , usually I’m through to departures within 40 minutes, but I’d prefer to be early rather than late. I also allow at least 30 minutes extra for parking. 

Agree with this.

I'm a very regular flyer and I plan around arriving at the airport 2 hours from departure. If you're dropping a car off at one of the airport parking companies, I'll plan to arrive there 2.5 hours before.

If you have no hold luggage and you can check in online, in most cases you'll spend virtually all of that 2 hours twiddling your thumbs in the airport. But I still think this is better than the heart attack you'll have if you end up in a traffic jam on the way to the airport.

For what it's worth, I flew out of Gatwick last Monday 28th Nov - and to be honest the airport was quite dead (North Terminal).

There was one person from the airline checking tickets though, which made the gate queue a mile long (not that that's relevant to missing your flight, they'll hardly take off with a queue at the gate!).