brp

We will be staying at the Hilton Copenhagen Airport in February. 4 minute walk to the airport. We have a 7:05AM flight (BA). Realistically, how late can we safely get to the airport and still be comfortable?

(Hotel breakfast starts at 5:30, which is why I'm asking )

Cheers.

GUWonder

Are you checking in luggage or do you otherwise have to deal with some counter staffed by BA's ground handling agent for checking in passengers or luggage or for other services? What is the date of travel? Which class of service and/or elite status level do you have with Oneworld? Those are the major factors I consider when doing my CPH-LHR runs on BA.

The variance in time to clear security and to clear passport control has become rather extreme at CPH in 2016 compared to what it used to be in 2015 and before.

More often than not, I'd show up at 5:45am if with checked luggage; without checked luggage and having checked in online the night before, I'd show up at 6am. But I'd suggesting padding way more time than that sometimes, even as a Oneworld Emerald on BA out of CPH.

brp

OWE (via AA). Flying BA coach. Travel is a Monday (workday).

No checked bags. Check-in will depend upon whether OLCI works the day before or not, so not known until then.

Certainly 6 is doable, even 5:45 if they let us get breakfast early.

I also noticed that the CPH website shows current security wait times at both terminals, so can certainly look at that after getting up. Passport control will be more of a crapshoot.

Cheers.

GUWonder

Not all Monday mornings are equal, but Monday morning is generally not the worst of it.

Those CPH website times are reliable enough, but they aren't entirely and always accurate for even how long it takes a customer to get to the passenger and cabin baggage screening machines.

BA premium passengers get fast track security, so that usually helps makes things a good deal faster, or at least not slower, than the wait times displayed at the airport for those times when the displayed time is accurate (something that isn't always a given).

Passport control has become a big mess too often for me since the government switched to automated passport control gates available for at least most EU/EEA passport users. I've had the morning and evening passport lines for my BA flights out of CPH vary from having no wait time to having 35+ minute waits in the past 12 months. Amusingly it takes longer for me at CPH when leaving the Schengen zone than when entering the Schengen Zone. If you can use the automated gates,
it may go smoother than it does for me.

Ever since the strip search machines and passport control gates went operational at CPH, this airport has become less consistent than it used to be. And the more extreme variance in times to clear the different kind of checkpoints means passengers have to pad in more time than they used to have to do in say 2015 if not wanting to risk missing the scheduled flight.

For a typical Monday morning with OLCI done for a trip with hand baggage only for CPH-LHR route in ClubEurope or as AA/BA OW Sapphire/Emerald, I would leave the Hilton CPH at 5:45 at the earliest or 6:20 at the latest and head directly to security at CPH. Even at a very fast pace, to go from Hilton CPH front desk to the BA gate never takes me no less than 8 minutes; and that's going as fast as I possibly can at an airport that I use several times a month. But leaving the hotel after 6 am is sort of gambling on missing the flight if it's the wrong Monday.

Hopefully your boarding pass scans properly at the gates to get to the security screening.