Early morning security lines at ABIA on a Saturday? (Howe: school, live)
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Early morning security lines at ABIA on a Saturday?
I'm flying out with my young kiddos very early on Saturday morning (THIS Saturday, day after school lets out) and I'm curious how long the security lines are at ~5:30/5:40am? Our flight is at 6:30am. Hoping to use a skycap to drop off bags, but I'm assuming they may not be there so early, which will increase the amount of time I need to be in the airport before my flight.
We live 35 minutes away, so for obvious reasons (young kids are not going to be happy getting up at 4:30am as it is), I'm trying to cut it as close as possible.
I normally get there 60 minutes early for an 8am flight, but for business travel, and of late, the security lines have been pretty long (~30 minutes), and on the ABIA website, they say the lines are 45+ at peak travel times, including 5am-8am.
I wouldn't cut it that close. A 6:30 am flight begins boarding at 6:00 (and the gate closes at 6:15) and when traveling with kids it's usually a good idea to take the early boarding option.
Giving yourself only 30 minutes to deal with parking and luggage check and TSA and then getting to the gate might be an acceptable risk when flying alone, but having to rebook the 3 of you on a standby basis if you miss your ticketed flight could be a major hassle. And you just never know when the line is going to stop dead for 10 minutes due to some issue up ahead, as it did my last time through ABIA.
In other words, killing a little time dealing with cranky kids might not be a desirable way to spend your early morning, but it's way ahead of missing your flight, so play it safe. I'd get there at 5.
I flew to Canada on Friday the 12th, a 6:30 flight, figured I'd need to arrive at 5:30 because it would be empty. (My husband had taken the same flight last fall and there was practically no one there.)
Got to the airport and the security lines were snaking around several times and then stretching all the way down the airport.
If I'd known it would be like that, I would have arrived at 5:00 at the latest.
We did a 630am flight with the kiddos one saturday in December and it was pretty much a breeze and the sky caps are there that early! If you take a car park off airport and get the van to drop you off at the loading area cause that was a breeze and we were going skiing so we had loads of stuff. Security took about 15mins and kids under 12 dont have to take shoes off any longer. At that time there was only one coffee shop opening up so we made the kids eat some donuts on the way there till we got to DFW and ate something else. Have fun
I'm flying out with my young kiddos very early on Saturday morning (THIS Saturday, day after school lets out) and I'm curious how long the security lines are at ~5:30/5:40am? Our flight is at 6:30am. Hoping to use a skycap to drop off bags, but I'm assuming they may not be there so early, which will increase the amount of time I need to be in the airport before my flight.
We live 35 minutes away, so for obvious reasons (young kids are not going to be happy getting up at 4:30am as it is), I'm trying to cut it as close as possible.
I normally get there 60 minutes early for an 8am flight, but for business travel, and of late, the security lines have been pretty long (~30 minutes), and on the ABIA website, they say the lines are 45+ at peak travel times, including 5am-8am.
Anyone have recent experience on what to expect?
thanks!
I would get there at 5:30 and not sweat it. The security line is going to be non existant. If you have airline status you can cut the line as well.
I flew to Canada on Friday the 12th, a 6:30 flight, figured I'd need to arrive at 5:30 because it would be empty. (My husband had taken the same flight last fall and there was practically no one there.)
Got to the airport and the security lines were snaking around several times and then stretching all the way down the airport.
If I'd known it would be like that, I would have arrived at 5:00 at the latest.
friday mornings are a tough call because business travelers are flying home. You can also mix in all the people on 7am flights all the way to 10am for the people who want to get there early. Except for around festivals like sxsw, saturday is almost certain to be light.
You can also go to the security line by jetblue which only jetblue people tend to use. I never use the one by southwest even when Im flying southwest.
Check in online and only drop the bags at the counter.
I know when I worked at the airport for a few weeks a lot of business travelers were going in around that time. Though I was outside and not inside not to see the lines.
Sorry, but as a very experienced high-mileage traveler, I think most people are looking at this from the wrong perspective.
The most significant question is not how close you can cut it to make the flight in case everything goes perfectly. What really matters is what happens if you miss the flight? You need to work backwards from that point.
If it's no big deal to you to miss the flight you're ticketed for, then the risk is small, and you can reasonably cut your safety margin to a minimum.
But if you're booked on a flight out that is only scheduled once a day, or your tickets are "non-refundable" tickets, or they carry a $100 change charge per ticket, or you might not be able to get 3 seats together for you and your children on a later flight, or anything else that could become a major problem for you, then you need to gauge your arrival time at the airport appropriate to the risk of missing your flight, in case something doesn't go according to plan.
And having personally experienced pretty much everything that can possibly go wrong trying to get out of town on a plane, I'll say that the occasional tedium of waiting a bit longer to board than I really needed to has nothing on the absolute agony of missing the flight I HAD TO BE ON by 5 minutes that I could easily have made if hadn't cut things so close.
Do yourself a favor and give yourself more safety margin than you think you really might need.
I was there two Sat's ago (got there around 5:45) and it was significantly busier than I expected. Part of it really depends on what airline you're on (American and Southwest were packed, as expected). However, by the time I left the airport, around 7, it was much much less busy. I'm guessing that lots of folks want to maximize their weekend times (and probably fares are cheaper as well) so they fly out as early as possible. If you have kiddos, then you may have to check stuff (e.g. car seats, strollers, etc), if you do, don't forget to factor that time in (relating back to the airline statement I made earlier). You can often check strollers at the gate (at least you could in the past and there was not a charge), and that can save mucho time if you can manage to carry on everything else (great thing about traveling with kids is that they are allowed the same number of carry ons but typically their stuff takes up way less space allowing you to carry even more on).
Even forgetting the fact that I loathe waking up that early, if I were going to travel on Sat and the exact timing wasn't as important (e.g. traveling west), I'd probably shoot for more around 7-9am.
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