[rconti]

Reminds me of when I showed up at SFO for my 2nd business trip to Australia, about 90mins before the flight. I had been unable to check in online (united's site gave me an unhelpful error) but I didn't think too much of it.

The kiosk at the airport also balked.

When I went to talk to a human, he casually asked me if I had a visa/ETA. This totally perplexed me as I didn't remember having to do anything in the past. He told me I'd just need to fill out a web form and "they usually approve it within an hour".

Minor panic while I tried to fill out a complicated web form on my iphone at the airport with shaking hands. Ultimately it was approved within about 20 minutes and I had no issues with my flight. Lesson learned! I guess on my previous trip I used my company's travel portal and it must have done the ETA for me automagically, so I never had any awareness I needed such a thing.

[supernova87a]

One lesson I learned the hard way (somewhat related to last minute panic at the airport) is: don't try to update/change something in your online check in process that has working, before a critical check-in time, because it can always be fixed at the airport.

Several years ago I got a new passport, and thought to use that to check in online for an intl flight. The app had my old passport and would have worked fine, but puked on scanning the new passport, and suddenly I was not / could not be checked in.

I started going to the airport, to arrive at my usual 1 hr before, but got delayed by traffic. Only by miracle of begging supervisor to reopen check in did they allow me to do it.

I should've just went with the old passport in the record that worked, and changed it out at the gate/checkin counter when at the airport.

[mattlondon]

90 minutes before the international flight? Without checking in before you arrive?!

Lesson learnt I hope!

Even priority security often takes that long (or longer!) discounting every over queue you have to stand in at an airport.

[rconti]

Nope, I spend as little time in the airport as possible. For domestic (US) flights, I target arriving ~30mins before boarding begins if not checking a bag. I typically find security takes around 5 minutes (TSA Pre-Check). I typically fly out of SFO although of course at least half my flights are coming home so I'm flying out of some other random airport. When things are REALLY bad, it's 15 minutes, which still leaves me 15 minutes with nothing to do. And that's before boarding begins. There is still around 30-45 minutes before the gate close, of additional buffer time.

I typically fly United and have their lowest tier frequent flier thing (silver), which means I get priority access baggage check for when I am checking a bag (go to kiosk, scan boarding pass, tag bag, drop at baggage drop). But even without that, you sometimes wait 5 minutes for a computer to print your bag tag.

For international flights, of course, it's more. Usually 1h+ before boarding begins.

Amusingly, my 3 worst experience were when I arrived super early and still barely made my flight. One was an Uber driver from Valparaiso Chile to the Santiago airport, who could NOT find where to drop me off, and I was trying to guide him, but I didn't know any Spanish. No joke, we drove around the runway multiple times.

2 others were on the same trip and both in Germany. Berlin Brandenberg, arrived exactly 2 hours before departure as EasyJet told me to do (counters do not open until 2h before). Bag drop took all of 2 minutes, and then I stood in a security line for at LEAST 1h20mins. Absolutely pants-on-head-insane. Other one was flying out of Frankfurt, opted to splurge on a taxi instead of public transit because I was excited to begin my journey home. Arrived at least 2 hours before the flight. Stood in a Lufthansa bag check line for well over an hour, it went absolutely nowhere. Panicked, found baggage check to have moved to another terminal for international flights (the adjacent bag check windows across the hallway were closed for construction) .. checked bags quickly, and still ended up having to navigate MULTIPLE lines for security that appeared to be correct but were so long (hundreds of meters) that they curved past other signage directing me to other places. What an ordeal.

[Tommstein]

A few years ago, I went on a vacation intending to visit Panama and Costa Rica. After a few days in Panama, I decided to go to Ecuador for a few days before Costa Rica. When I got to the airport in Ecuador to check in for my flight to Costa Rica, I was asked for my yellow fever vaccination certificate. "My what?" Turns out that if you spend even one day in Ecuador, you need a yellow fever vaccination certificate to go to Costa Rica.

And that's how I got stranded in Ecuador for the rest of the vacation . . . .

[zwieback]

I was sweating just reading this!