isle-hawg

How much time should I allot to check in leaving MCO for a 1300ish flight this Friday (I have to check a bag) ?

I have TSA precheck, in my past experience on AA flights the last few years to MCO it was pretty quick. Had I not have had access to their Priority check-in I think it would have taken me 45 minutes or more just to check my bag. The lines at WN look much worse, but I have not seen the lines for B6 which is why I ask.

jcneve

--TSA pre-check is usually very quick at MCO. 10 minutes is probably the most I've ever waited.
--JetBlue check in with bags at MCO is abysmal. Really/really bad, and overall uncharacteristic of the JetBlue brand. First of all it's a little confusing as far as the lines go and about 25% of the time the regular line moves faster than priority...sometimes I've found that I have to advocate for myself when I'm in the priority line because it's like they forget the priority line is there. I'm Mosaic and I still budget budget 20 minutes for check-in. Non-Mosaic I'd budget 30-35.
--There has also recently been some construction going on and the little subway system trains don't run as frequently as normal. Budget 15 minutes for that just in case.
I fly out tomorrow (Monday) so I can give you an update.

sbm12

The new MCO check-in lobby opened a month ago.

That should (hopefully) help smooth some of the lines issues for checking bags.

ptownca

MCO is one of the places where it was so bad, I opted to buy CLEAR on the spot and it worked. The prior time I had pre-check, I still missed my flight even arriving 1:15 before the flight.

ucfjoe

I'm flying out of there every other week and by and large I'm under 5 minutes to get through pre-check lines. For non pre, that's where the lines can be 5 min or an hour. For Friday afternoon, it's not peak travel but if you happen to be there when a large foreign tour group is going through that's where it can suck as TSA is only reactionary but again I think it's safe to say most of them don't have pre. I think clear is worthless but at least at MCO they have two lines (one of you have pre and one of you don't) so you can skip two people in line if you want.

ptownca

My experience has been early morning heading westbound and even Pre-Check was a mess.

jcneve

Flew out of MCO yesterday via JetBlue. The new JetBlue setup seems to work very/very well. Kiosk and bag drop took about 5 minutes, pre-check then took about 8 minutes. Waited about 5 minutes for a tram.

isle-hawg

Thank you for the responses and for all others who took the time to respond!! Based on this I will not sweat to get to the airport 3 hours early to check my bag, which is what it looks like it takes to do over at WN lines I have passed and the AA non-priority lines which I have seen on past trips at MCO - which look like utter chaos.

For those of you who live in or near a B6 hub I am more then a 'lil envious as I see it they are SOOOO much better then every other North American airlines it is not even close. EDIT: Not that I want to live in one of your fine cities (which I visit, but have no desire to live in) - but that if DCA or RIC was one of their hub cities this would be my go-to airline all the time. Unfortunately for where I live it makes zero sense for cross country travel for me which makes up most of my travels.

ptownca

Well, I for one have been lucky to be in the SF Bay Area to enjoy VX at its best for around 4 years and sad to see it disappear under AS. In SEA where I was until recently, AS and Setac are definitely downgrades from SFO and VX.

I'm back home in BOS after a 10+ year world tour and happy to be back in B6 country.

RWPrincess

MCO has had sporadic security issues since late September meaning that the TSA arbitrarily decides to do additional screening, including on PreCheck passengers. There is no rhyme or reason to it and it's a well known issue. I have a pilot friend who has experienced it several times on the KCM line and I have friends who have experienced it on PreCheck. They've been asking for laptops, any food items and other stuff to be removed for additional screening which has been holding up lines. But again it's not consistently enforced and there is no way to predict it. Best advice is to arrive early and pack your patience. Even Disney has added an extra hour to their airport shuttle transfer service for this very reason.

I haven't used the new JetBlue kiosks yet but as someone who flies through MCO 4-6 times a year, I learned a long time ago to avoid doing anything at the ticket counter if possible. If I'm at Walt Disney World and need to check a bag, I use the hotel check-in service and have them transfer my bags to JetBlue. If I'm not at Walt Disney World, I do everything in my power to carry on. If I need to talk to a human, I walk right up on the Mosaic line. I avoid flying other airlines through MCO as much as possible.

Mary Louise

There is only one tram running at B6 terminal. I have precheck, no. Checked backs, and took about 1 hour. Please remember the time it takes to get to the airport. The car lines are long at Departure.

ML

EasyD

I flew JetBlue from MCO today to BOS. The new kiosks and bag drop worked very well. Probably took 30 seconds to tag my bag and maybe a minute to drop it. Precheck line was about 15 deep, but moved very quickly. Nothing unexpected with screening or TSA in general. Only one tram did take some time. Took less then 30 minutes from curbside to gate.

I fly 3-4 times a month through MCO on JetBlue and the last few times with the new ticket counter area really help a lot!

isle-hawg

Thank you all who took the time to respond!

Just got home, and my data point from today is that Jet Blue at MCO has plethora of kiosks, tripling anything I have seen before from other airlines. The majority of the kiosks were empty/available when I checked-in today at 1130. It took me less then 5 minutes from the time I walked up to the kiosk to the time I dropped off my bag.

The pre-check line was between 5 - 10 minutes.

With having half the train tracks down for maintenance it was about another 5 minute wait.

ptownca

This is all great news for folks like me who only go to MCO under duress.

All my prior experiences were flying DL.

RWPrincess

I'm glad you had a positive experience. The added security measures I mentioned seem to be sporadic and unpredictable. I've personally never experienced them either but I know of multiple people who have. So if anyone else if flying through MCO soon, keep this in mind.