Originally Posted by
jkumpire
This Friday, on UA at 7:30 A.M. I'm always at the airport 2 hours early, but I heard it is such a train wreck/dumpster fire I fear two hours early is not soon enough.
I try to avoid morning flights because I'm not a morning person but as another poster mentioned it's highly variable. About 6-8 weeks ago I had an AM flight and showing up 2 hours early the TSA Pre line was nearly half the length of the terminal. About a month ago same flight, same showed up a bit earlier based on previous flight and I was #3 in line waiting for TSA Pre to open. Both of those were when TSA Pre was centralized at the B checkpoint... Since it's moved back to C it seems much less crowded.
You might want to check to see what time TSA claims they're opening on Friday. No sense in showing up uber early if you can't get through security. (And personally, I'd grab a room at the Hilton Garden Inn across 480 but that's because I prefer to sleep as late as humanly possible)