I’m going to visit my D this weekend. I decided to book a 5:45 am flight so she can get to work. Ugh!
I’m tsa pre checked, what time do you think I need to get to the airport? I’ll only have a carry on. Does anyone know if security is open before 5 am? Small regional airport.
I was thinking 4:45.
Sounds about right to me. That’s what I would do. Check your flight status before you go.
I did that once. Never again. I live over an hour from the airport, and they want you to get there at least one hour before. I realized I’d have to get up at something like 3:00 AM. I wound up getting a hotel room at the airport, thereby negating the fact that it was a really cheap flight.
I would want to be in the terminal by that time, not hunting for parking.
call the airport and ask them.
Can you check the airport in question to see when security opens? After flying Saturday/today at both larger and smaller airports I will say that all airports were BUSY. Detroit (not small, I know…
) was quite busy at 5:15 Saturday morning - lots of spring breakers I think as well (families). Your hour is probably fine, but MAYBE give yourself a 15 minute extra cushion. And buy a yummy hot drink then while you’re waiting.
Call the airline and ask what time security opens at that airport.
Are you checking in baggage? If not, I think 45 min prior is plenty early. And yes, security is open that early. Depending on airline and airport, they could be quite busy at that time. I flew at 6:15 am a couple of weeks ago and it was quite busy.
Hoping your TSA lines are running well. We had a 6 am flight in April last year…got to the airport 4:45 and frankly would have missed the flight if the nice SW ticket agent hadn’t walked us to the priority TSA line.
And we had TSA precheck.
I think the TSA back up issues have been resolved…but we get to the airport at least 1 1/2 hours early for flights. I’d rather sit around at the gate than worry about getting through a line.
Any chance there is a hotel near your airport where you can spend the night?
Thanks.
This is my flight going home. My D is going to drop me off and she lives 6 miles from the airport. So I won’t have to park my car. No luggage to check either.
Thanks, why I didn’t think of calling the airport is beyond me! I will call them tomorrow.
It’s nice of your daughter to drive you to the airport. Have a good visit!
Early in the morning tends to be the busiest time of the day in our airport. I allow an hour and a half. Usually I have lots of time to kill, but I don’t want to take a chance.
I have a 5:35 flight in the morning. Whhhyyyyyyyy?
Are you flying out of Eugene, OR? I fly out of there fairly often on 6:00 flight, and the security lines are always long. So I need to be the airport about 4:30. If you are flying from west to east there tend to a lot of those early morning flights cause people are trying to catch up to east coast flights.
My regional airport security opens at 4:30. I think first flight out is 530. Multiple flights leave at 6 am. It is a busy time but I’ve never had a long wait. For a 5:30 flight we like to get dropped off at just before 5 if we aren’t checking a bag. Our airport is pretty small only 1 terminal. My kid uses Sacramento as her local airport. While it is a small airport it is much busier than my airport and she needs to allow for more time.
Maybe if you post actual airport you could get more accurate information.
I agree with others that its best to call and ask. Like @MaineLonghorn, my regional airport is surprisingly busy early in the morning. However, I did show up early for a very early flight and had to cool my heels waiting for security to open.
To me, the worst part of traveling early is that I never sleep well the night before regardless of what I do. I’m always worried about oversleeping and wind up having a restless night.
I will add have a wonderful fun time with your daughter @deb922 !!!
nobody should be awake at that time of the day!
when I go somewhere in the dark before the sun comes up i feel like it is surreal.
We overslept the last time we had early flight. Never again.
I flew a very early flight out of Denver two weeks ago and the security lines were about 20-30 minutes. Flying home from Orlando on a Sat NIGHT? About an hour. And HOT. And noisy. People everywhere. Of course I ‘won’ TSA precheck on the way out, but not on the way back.