Originally Posted by
Pickles
If you only have carry-on and can get your boarding pass from the kiosks in the check-in area, you avoid the biggest and most time-consuming headache of all, which is the physical checking of the luggage. A CF of varying proportions, depending on the airline. Most organized and least painful is CX, with El Al by far the worst, and IB somewhere in between.
In that case, you can go through the whole circus in about 30 minutes. If you have to stand in line to check your bags, you're looking at 1:30 as an opening bid.
This is a very important point and was built into my assumption because I rarely check luggage. The UA lines for luggage and boarding passes were ridiculously long, reminded me of Cancun at holiday time. And still horrible for C/F/elites. So if you are checking bags then you may need more time.
Originally Posted by
craz
1stly not everyone has free access to a lounge.2ndly not everyone can relax in the departure area or cares to. Personally I hate airports and the least amount of time I spend in them the better. And yes I always get into the Dan due to my status and I prefer being able to go straight to the gate due to boarding starting soon, then to sit in the overcrowded lounge or simply walk around just to pass time
If you or anyone else enjoy spending time in an airport term or airport lounge thats fine,I dont that includes some very nice lounges around the world
Agree. The Dan lounges are nothing special, and not somewhere you want to spend 2 hours. And the other problem is that many of the international flights leave early morning so you lose sleep hours, a bit different than spending 3 hours at ORD or LHR in the middle of the afternoon.
OTOH we don't want anyone to miss their flights. So I think the safe rule of thumb is 2 hours for tourists/business people with clean passports and no checked bags, and 3 hours if you have visited countries with significant Muslim populations or you had intimate or significant contact with non-Jewish locals. I'm basing this solely on the questions that are asked.