Do I need to get to Gatwick 3 hours early?!
Discussion
The only thing I would mention is that it is Easter holiday time for schools which may play a part in volumes.
Personally, I would be allowing 3 hours to be on the safe side or, albeit Manchester, do what a friend is doing, aiming to get there 4 hours early, be first in the queue for Check in and then spend 3 hours in the comfort of the lounge!
Personally, I would be allowing 3 hours to be on the safe side or, albeit Manchester, do what a friend is doing, aiming to get there 4 hours early, be first in the queue for Check in and then spend 3 hours in the comfort of the lounge!
Monkeylegend said:
You would normally want to get there 2 hours before so another hour is probably worth considering at the moment.
This, in normal times I'd say that 2 hours is plenty for a London airport. However these are not normal times. Airports are suffering staff shortages from the minimal amount of staff they had at the best of times and a lot of self service options are not available due to the myriad of requirements by different countries. Sunday previous I rocked up at LHR with 2:10 to go, barely made it to my flight which was delayed due to check in issues, that issue mainly being that KLM effectively had 1 person checking in the 150+ economy class passengers.
So yeah, I'd say 3 hours to be on the safe side. Worst case scenario is that you spend an extra hour airside playing with yourself
Went to Faro on Friday via Gatwick.
Bag drop queue was probably half an hour (Easyjet), and security around the same. As said above all of a sudden no need to remove liquids from bags, etc (although should still be in clear bags inside your hand luggage).
However, getting back on Sunday night was a nightmare. 20 minutes waiting to disembark, an hour to get through passport control, then another hour on top of that for bag collection.
Bag drop queue was probably half an hour (Easyjet), and security around the same. As said above all of a sudden no need to remove liquids from bags, etc (although should still be in clear bags inside your hand luggage).
However, getting back on Sunday night was a nightmare. 20 minutes waiting to disembark, an hour to get through passport control, then another hour on top of that for bag collection.
Are you flying EasyJet or BA? If the latter, do you have silver or above?
Do you have bags to drop?
The answer could vary between 1-3 hours depending on the above.
LHR you need maybe even less than 1hr for international flights as long as you have fast track security and no bags to drop
Do you have bags to drop?
The answer could vary between 1-3 hours depending on the above.
LHR you need maybe even less than 1hr for international flights as long as you have fast track security and no bags to drop
Rosscow said:
Went to Faro on Friday via Gatwick.
Bag drop queue was probably half an hour (Easyjet), and security around the same. As said above all of a sudden no need to remove liquids from bags, etc (although should still be in clear bags inside your hand luggage).
However, getting back on Sunday night was a nightmare. 20 minutes waiting to disembark, an hour to get through passport control, then another hour on top of that for bag collection.
Similar to this. Flew to Madrid with Iberia, checked in early and queue was big behind us. Hand luggage with son's medication (liquid) got pulled aside for questions on way out.Bag drop queue was probably half an hour (Easyjet), and security around the same. As said above all of a sudden no need to remove liquids from bags, etc (although should still be in clear bags inside your hand luggage).
However, getting back on Sunday night was a nightmare. 20 minutes waiting to disembark, an hour to get through passport control, then another hour on top of that for bag collection.
Flying back took longer to disembark, ages through passport control then extra wait for baggage. Bit of a drag.
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