[NitpickLawyer]

Heh, on the other hand the one and only time I arrived hours earlier was in the US :) I was flying AMS to SFO via Portland, we cleared immigration unusually fast, and when I got to my gate (connecting flight was in like 4 hours) the lady there asked if I wanted to move to an earlier one, boarding in ~20 mins. I said sure, and I even got the checked-in luggage at SFO (she did say that there was a chance it'd get sent later).

[SoftTalker]

Airlines are often happy to do this as the earlier flight is likely not full, and allowing you on it costs them nothing while it opens a seat on the later flight which they can then sell to a standby passenger.