7 a.m. flight Friday ??

[butterfield]

Flight on Friday at 7 am. with Ryanair, have checked in on line and will have one bag to drop. What time do I need to be at airport ??

Long time since I went on early flight and I know the last time I did the airport was really busy. So I'm thinking with it being a long weekend etc and extra traffic will I need to be there at 5 or is 5.30 time enough ??

Many thanks

 

[spwizard]

I'd try to get there for 5 in case of unexpected delays.

 

[g1g]

didn't say where you are flying from but generally airport is at busiest this time of day with business flyers and also people taking first flight to london etc for long haul flights.

 

[schmile]

Depends on the time if its Cork I would say 6. If its Dublin I would say 5

 

[g1g]

Cork is very busy that time of the morning too (not as busy as Dublin) buy found in the last few weeks they are doing alot more searching in bags than before therefore more delays.

 

[butterfield]

Flying out of Dublin to Bergamo ... was thinking I should be there for 5. Just hate these really early starts and thought I could leave it till a bit later.

Thanks everyone !

 

[shesells]

At that stage of the morning that half hour in bed makes little difference to how hard it is to get up. If you want to be sure you get that flight, it's worth it to be there at 5.

 

[undo]

I absolutely love getting to the airport at the last second (I managed twice so far to check in 1 minute before the machines close and refuse to let you check in). Ryanair have general bag tag & drop desks with long queues but also a separate one for closing flights. So if you get there at the last minute when your flight is about to close, you can go to that separate desk and skip the queue... that is what I tend to do. Thus, you would be totally fine getting there at 5:30 or even a bit later.

 

[Aurnia]

So if you get there at the last minute when your flight is about to close, you can go to that separate desk and skip the queue... that is what I tend to do. Thus, you would be totally fine getting there at 5:30 or even a bit later.

Just a warning on that. I've had checked in baggage got lost in transit twice. It happens when you just get to the desk before closing and basically you make the flight but your luggage doesn't.

This happened to me in 2 different years, 2 different flights and 2 different airlines under 2 different circumstances but the common thread was a delay airport side:
(a) Frankfurt to Leipzig with Luftansa
(b) Dublin to London with Aer Lingus.

In both cases, I was at Dublin airport on time with plenty of check in time.

But in the first instance the Dublin to Frankfurt flight got delayed leaving Dublin (check in went smooth but it was weather that caused the delay) thus almost missed the internal transfer to Leipzig.

In the second instance last summer during the delay's on flights leaving Dublin airport due to the problems with air traffic control outages. My flight was delayed an hour and half, so when I went to check in the hour and half later to which I thought was the time for my flight to check in as per the screens, the ground staff bumped up my flight to the earlier again but also delayed flight that was at that time closing.
In hindsight I should have stayed with the original flight no as it was only about 3/4 hr later in the end.

Sadly the outcome was the same, my luggage got delayed for 1 day in the first as it was left in Frankfurt, where as it was over 48 hrs the second time as the luggage didn't even depart Dublin and it took ages for the staff to realise this.
Both times I was only going away for about 3-4 days.

So best to not just nearly miss the flight if having checked in luggage no matter what airline you are on. Other times I've flown and checked in with plenty of time, the luggage got onto the flight as per normal.

That said, flying with Ryanair tomorrow as well! Different flight though. Right back to packing.