How early should you be at the airport?

Everyone has a number, and most of them are guesses. Here is how to make yours a decision.

The baseline

Two hours before a short-haul flight, three before a long-haul one. That covers a bag drop with a queue, security at a normal hour, passport control where there is one, and a walk to a far gate.

Add time when

You are flying at a peak hour, which at most airports means early morning, lunchtime and the end of the afternoon. It is a school holiday. You are checking bags on an airline with a single desk. You are leaving a country whose exit controls are slow, or your gate is in a different terminal reached by train. You have children, a wheelchair request or a pram to check. Each of these is worth half an hour.

Take time away when

You have checked in online, have only a cabin bag, know the airport and hold fast-track security. In that case ninety minutes is often enough for a domestic or Schengen flight. Do not take time away for a flight you cannot afford to miss.

The deadline that matters

Bag drop closes forty to sixty minutes before departure on most airlines, and the gate closes fifteen to thirty minutes before. Boarding passes carry the exact times; the "departure" time is when the doors are already shut. Everything else in the airport is a queue you can move through; those two are walls.

The morning flight

The first flights of the day leave on time more often than any others, because the aircraft slept at the gate and nothing has gone wrong yet. If you have a connection, an early first leg is the safest you can buy.

While you wait

A lounge pass is worth it for a long wait with a family; a quiet gate and a coffee is fine for an hour. Download your maps and the first day's plan before you board, because the first hour in a new country rarely has a good signal.

How Travlyo does it

Save your flight home and the last day is kept light before the departure time, so you are not racing from a museum to the gate.