fried.food.is.good

I have a 6AM flight this Tuesday from DCA to Cabo San Lucas Mexico but have a stop over at ORD.

While this is an international itinerary which requires me to arrive 2 hours before the flight takes off, is that really necessary?

I've been at DCA at 5am and the place is empty and getting there at 4am only to have to wait an hour longer seems pointless to me. If it were me only, I would just go early but I am traveling with my wife and baby which makes things tougher.

Has anyone traveled internationally out of DCA <<with luggage>> with a domestic stop over that arrived 1 hour prior to flight departure and how was it?

Thanks!

HNL

53 minutes

lobo411

I think I had a 7 AM flight out of DCA once and got there at 6...the AA ticket counter was just opening up at that time!

beerup

No it's not necessarily to be there two hours early - it's a domestic flight you're boarding. You are required to have checked in 30 min before departure and be at the gate 15 min before departure. For international you need to check in 60 min ahead of departure and be at the gate 30 min before departure. Since your international leg depart more than 30 min after your domestic leg, 30 min before the domestic leg is on time for the international leg.

beerup

FYI, the information is here:

https://www.aa.com/aa/i18nForward.do...rivalTimes.jsp

Note that it gives cut-off times for international departures, not itineraries that include international travel. IMO, the suggested arrival times are pointless since they are not specific for how far you travel to the airport, how much traffic, the time of day, how busy the security lines are at that time at that specific airport, whether you have status and can bypass the main security line or how stressed you get if you are cutting it close. The important things to know are the absolute cut off times for check in and being at the gate, and you can make your own judgments on how early you need to plan to be there based upon your specific circumstances.

gemac

If you will claim your bags in ORD, consider it like a domestic flight. If you will check your bags through to Mexico, I would get there 2 hours early. My understanding is that the 2 hours is more for your bags than for you - there is a higher level of screening required, and if you cut it too close your bags may miss the flight.

Abidjan

Don't mess around - the AA counter at DCA is not a dead zone at 5 a.m., at least not anymore - and hasn't been in awhile. When I breeze through there around a little before 5 each time, there is already a long line of people waiting to check-in (those with bags).

Now, UAL and USAir, their gates at that time are dead for sure.

ESpen36

One way of saving time and reducing stress, especially if you will have no checked luggage, is to take all of your passports out to the airport the day before (within 24 hours of the departure time of the first segment) and use a kiosk to check everybody in and print your boarding passes. That way you can skip check-in on the morning of your departure and go directly to security. (Obviously, this option works well if DCA is relatively convenient to your home and/or work.)

(Remember that you cannot do OLCI because your itinerary includes international flights.)

Black Adder

I once overslept and got to DCA at 0515 for a 0600 flight to JFK connecting on JAL to BKK, check in and security were a breeze and even managed a quick coffee in the AC.

fried.food.is.good

Wow - this is a great idea that I never considered. I may use this in the future but unfortunately I can't for this trip because we will have luggage to check in.

pistonsdc

I never check bags, so please excuse the naive question, but could one use the above strategy, then check the bags at curbside the next day?

rabble

I once flew GUA (Guatemala) to LIM (Lima) leaving at 6am. They insisted, and i mean insisted that i would NOT get on the plane unless i was there 3 hours before. I showed up at 4am, 2 hours early, the airport was abandoned, empty, the front doors padlocked. They didn't even open the doors to the airport until quarter past 5!

I told the airline, copa i think, that they'd be closed at that time, they said that if i didn't show up that early i wouldn't get on the plane. I should have realized they were lying.

On the other hand, LAN domestic flights, i've had them decide that the weather of the day would mean than the last 30 passengers who arrived to check in wouldn't get on the plane. They rescheduled people but didn't offer any compensation.

gemac

1. Curbside can't check bags for internationa. If the passenger has a domestic stopover like OP and will claim bags there, then this would work. If not, not.

2. You would have to answer the kiosk question about bags "no". Not sure once you do that if curbside can check bags in, or if you would have to do that at the counter. Seems to me like a good way to get SSSSed.

3. As pointed out in my earlier post, the reason for the 2 hour recommendation for international is so that there is enough time to properly screen your bags. If you were successful doing this, you would be almost certain to have delayed bags.

Sometimes, it is just better to get up a half-hour earlier. You can take a nap on the plane.

PanAmFT

I don't think the AA ticket counters at airports with limited or no international flights even open til about 90 minutes before the earliest flight - which could very well be your 6AM.
I'd call AA at 800-433-7300 ASAP to ask what time their counter at DCA opens. No matter what they need to do with your luggage, there's no point to arriving before someone's there to take it.

FYI, I'm out of RDU, and have arrived an hour before departure on an early AM domestic leg connecting to an overseas flight, with luggage, and had no problem whatsoever.

seanp7

I'd agree with this information.

To the OP: 4:45am or so would be good as 5am may be cutting it a bit fine. My experience two weeks ago was a lot of passengers struggling with the kiosk self-service (they were checking bags). Entering your passport details can take a bit of time (it wasn't reading the scanned version for some reason so we had to key details in manually x 2 passengers). Once you have your boarding passes you can then see an agent for bag tagging. (We were further delayed when the kiosk ran out of paper, so went to First Class to get them issued, but I'm assuming that's a rare problem). That entire process could take up to 20/25 minutes. Just be sure to head for the self-service machines, as the long lines that were mentioned are folks lining up for full-service (who think that's the only way they can check-in because they have bags). If in doubt - grab a roaming AAgent (there were a couple) and ask for the kiosks, since a lot of passengers were walking around unsure of whether they can use the kiosks or not.

Security should be a breeze at that hour too, so you do have a bit of time to play with.

4am is too early.