Originally Posted by
Jasper2009
Assuming there are no other aspects that would raise the agents' attention and you don't plan to check any baggage I'd recommend arriving 2.5h before departure. If you want to be absolutely safe, arrive 3h in advance, but arriving any earlier is just a waste of time IMO. Personally, when travelling in J with hand baggage only I usually arrive ~2h before departure which leaves me with >1h for security if necessary (I have spent anywhere from 5min - 45min at security, the latter not being a particularly fun experience, and I still had sufficient time to get to the gate).
IIRC there's some sort of priority line for security, but I can't remember whether it was just for J/F pax or also *G members.
1. *G does not help you at all. The "quick" security check are offered when:
- travelling only with hand luggage (after OLCI + printing boarding passes, go to the "departure gates", just when you are asked to present passport+boarding passes, there is a counter on the right side for security questioning).
- J/F (try to enter the regular queue and ask them to guide you to the J/F queue. in the case of flights leaving from the ground floor (LH,OS,US, if I remember correctly), it is on the right of all the regular queues).
Note that after the questioning, you go throw the security check point like everyone else, and there are no priority queues (usually not needed - the maximum I waited in these is 15 minutes).
2. Personally, I set the timer at 2h. Assuming you are non-threat (have an invitation letter from an Israeli colleague/business partner with their phone number on it), this is more than enough (TLV has a nice duty free and lousy lounges, so no point in rushing through security).