How much time?
 

I sure would love for someone to tell me how far in advance to arrive at the airport!!! Anyone with recent experience for a midmorning weekend flight out of Dulles? The TV news says up to 4 hours, customers interviewed in line say 3, and the United website says 2 hr domestic. Now, I don't want to miss my flight, but I don't want to be sitting around the airport for longer than needed either. Who do you listen to? Smallworld PS The 1-800 number says 3 hrs.

Before 9-11, I found parking in the hinterlands, riding the shuttlebus, doing the peasant and taking a UA plane in a middle concourse took the better part of 2 hours. I also usually left an extra 30 min to get through Tyson's corner.

Thanks for the reply. I was actually interested in travel since the 11th. We live about 20-25 mins from Dulles and use it frequently; just have not flown out since the 11th. Glad we don't have to go through Tysons Corner!!! I avoid that area if I can at all costs! thanks Smallworld

I can't tell you anything specific about Dulles (whenever visiting the DC area, including my recent post-11th trip, I fly Southwest into BWI), but based on other airports I can tell you a few general post-11th things:

The time you need is extremely dependent on various things. For example, at some times of day in some airports, due to descreased traffic, people with no checked baggage find they can get through in LESS time than before. The long lines that you see on TV seem to always be for baggage/ticketing. And those can vary a lot from one airline to another.

Furthermore, in general, the post-11th rushes can be very dependent on time of day, for various reasons. At LAX, several of us have compared early morning and versus early and late afternoon, and found carryon (X-ray) lines to be longest in early morning. (None of us comparing notes there have done midmorning since the 11th tho.) What seems to happen is that at certain times of day (including overnight http://www.flyertalk.com/airports/ft...orum/smile.gif) they understaff those caryon screening stations, and then when a rush hour hits (like early morning short-hop commuting flight time) they may not be ready enough. By midmorning I would guess that the rush of business commuters would be over and there's no rush of midday travelers expected so it should be a bit better.

But since none of us comparing notes about LAX have checked baggage since the 11th, I can't even tell you from experience how fast those baggage/ticketing lines move at a particular airline in any other airport, let alone Dulles, sorry. I've heard conflicting stories on TV, with some people who were in really long lines wrapping all around like the worst lines at Disney World later say they got through it all in just 30 minutes, and others on other days (and quite likely other times of day and at other airlines) saying it took many hours.

Well that gives me some idea. Thank you. I have been hearing conflicting reports even on the local tv stations here in the DC area. They show long lines to check in, but then when they interview people, they saw 30 minutes to get to front. Sometimes it takes that long anyway---even before this mess. They have started curbside check-in again at Dulles-we never use it-so that may take some of the people out of the baggage line. Thanks again for your comments. Smallworld PS As a completely different aside----since I a new to this bb--how come my replies always show the text of the post I am replying to and yours does not? Just curious.

The Washinton Metro bus 5A runs from DC to Rosslyn to Herndon to Dulles. I've taken if from Rosslyn to Dulles. It costs $1.10 and runs once an hour and lets you off at door #4 on the center level.

If you have an eticket boarding pass you can go right through security to the gate and check in. You can also do curb side check in if you have baggage.

The biggest delays I've seen in the 5 flights I've taken since 9/11 have been people waiting at the ticket counter.

So if you catch the bus at Rosslyn or the Herndon park and ride just off the tollway you can cut your time down considerably. If you use an eticket that cuts it down even more.

Last Monday I left Rosslyn at 1:45, got to Dulles at 2:30, got through security and rode the shuttle over to terminal B in less than 15 minutes, and was in plenty of time to catch an earlier flight than the flight I was scheduled to take.

So 3 or 4 hours is way too much lead time.

Well, as you can see, it depends which of my replies. http://www.flyertalk.com/airports/ft...orum/smile.gif

Two answers:

First, note that there are two ways to reply.

One, obviously the one that you are using, is to click on the " " above a message, in which case (unless you edit what is produced*) you are going to generate a message that starts with a quote of the specific message you replied to.

The other is to click on "Post New Reply" at that top of the page, in which case you are adding to the discussion but not necessarily replying to any specific message, so in that case no quoted text is generated automaticaly and your reply starts out blank until you type something.

*In the case where you reply using " ", your reply window will start out with a quote of all the text of the specific message you are replying to. If you want to keep that, just start typing at the end. If you want to get rid of all of that, just use normal editing methods to delete ALL of that before you start typing. If you want to shorten that (as I did in this reply here), be careful, do not delete the portions in square brackets like QUOTE and B and /B and /QUOTE (if you get rid of some but not all of them the message formatting will get messed up), just delete part of the quoted text between the bracketed B and bracketed /B carefully.


[This message has been edited by Stefan Daystrom (edited 10-07-2001).]

Aha. (re my question about replies) i see how to do it now. Thank you!!!

Now about my original post------

We are back from our trip out of Dulles. The long lines were not really at the security point but at the ticket counter checkin and at curbside. We got through rather quickly. Husband dropped me off curbside, then a skycap took me to the United Premier Gold counter back around the other side. I felt so sorry for those that had to wait in those long lines. Smallworld

BWI is terrible on Southwest. The lines seem to be quite literally a mile long through security. Anyone have recent experience?

Mine was on NW on Saturday morning at BWI and it was quick, but the Southwest line snaked all the way through several terminals and was that way when I returned Monday to BWI.