IAD: How much time for security?
 

I've booked a 6:10 am flight from IAD on Saturday, July 22. Since it is a two hour drive to the airport, what is the minimum amount of time you would allot to comfortably get to the gate and make the flight?

Saturday morning can be busy, but with a 6:10 a.m. flight, you'll be one of the first out. First, you have to get from parking to the terminal. If you park at Daily Garage 1 ($15/day), it'll take you about 10 minutes from the time you park to walk to the terminal. If you have no luggage to check and you either print out your boarding pass at home or use one of the Easy Check-in machines (generally no line at the 3 on the baggage claim level close to where the walkway from Daily Garage 1 comes up), go up to the departure level and immediately enter the security line. You probably should be through security within 15 minutes of getting in line (often a lot shorter). Then, you'll have to ride one of the people movers out to terminal C/D (if you're flying UX, you'll probably be flying out Terminal A to which you can either walk or take a people mover) which should take about 5-8 minutes (plus the up to 5 minutes you'll need to wait for the people mover to depart). After arriving at Terminal C/D, give yourself 10 minutes to walk to the gate. And you need to be at the gate at least 20 minutes before departure time. In total, you should budget at least 1 hour from your arrival at IAD before your scheduled departure. Of course, how close you want to cut things depends on your comfort level. If you have luggage to check, add 20 minutes or so (it's worth paying the money to have one of the agents outside the terminal on the departure level check your bags to save time). If you park in the economy lots ($9/day), give yourself at least 30 minutes to get to the terminal (shuttle buses are few and far between at that hour). You may end up needing less time, but IAD can be unpredictable. Good luck!

And welcome to FlyerTalk!

I'd give yourself at least an hour between the time you expect to be able to get into the security line and your departure time.

At least.

And then start adding time from there. Walk from the daily garage? 10-15 minutes. Check in bags? 20 minutes or so - in case there's a line. It probably won't take that long, but if you rely on a short line and it's not, you're screwed. Remote parking? 30+ minutes.

If you plan on parking in the remote lot, and have bags to check, you'd best plan on getting to IAD by 4 AM or so.

Last night, I happened to note the times:

Left my house at 20:30 on the dot for 21:40 flight. It takes ~18 minutes to IAD. I parked in garage 2. I didn't take my normal spot so wasted two minutes. Noted the clock in the terminal at 20:58 just past the BA counter. I then placed a call from the A terminal at 21:09. So ~20 minutes from getting my parking ticket in garage 2. This is close to a best case scenario, although I had some slowpokes in the security line but the countdown clock was at 1:00 min for the A terminal shuttle. Add an extra 5 minutes for C/D.

I assume 06:10 will be a similar scenario to the calm of late night but I might wrong...... It does get very busy around 8 am.

So best case getting to C/D is 25 mintues from entering garage 1 or 2 with BP pre-printed and no luggage to check.

Hmm. Thanks for the input. The good news is that I will have only carry on and may be dropped off at departures. The other option is staying overnight nearby and calling for a taxi. It seems most of the hotels do not start their shuttle service until 5:00 am and it sounds like that would be cutting things a bit too close. My flight is to ORD so I suspect that the C/D terminal will be in my future.

There's no way I'd take a 5:00 am shuttle for a 6:10 am flight. Leaving that early on a Saturday, you shouldn't hit the worst security lines at IAD, but you could still find a moderately long line. Plus, the lines are likely to get longer the later you get there, so it's a risky game to try to cut it too close.

In the pre-9/11 days, I used to call a cab for 1 hour before departure from my house in Reston. These days, I'd say you need to plan to be in the security line (i.e. dropped off & checked in) by an hour before departure on the best of days.
If you're ever leaving on a Thursday evening, add another 30-45 minutes, IME.

If you are dropped off then 45 min to 1 hr should be fine. (The former if my assumption about it being quiet at that hour is correct.) If the hotel shuttle actually departs reliably at 05:00 then no problem. If you stay at the Marriott then you can walk across the street and enter garage 1 and walk through the tunnel or catch a parking garage shuttle.

I have never arrived at IAD more than an hour before departure and do just fine.

Thank you for the advice. Doing the calculations, I decided it is much wiser to stay overnight near the airport rather than get up at 2:30 and drive. With a bit of searching, I discovered at least one of the hotels has a 4:30 shuttle The driver of that shuttle will definitely deserve a bit more than a thank you.

One other advantage of your plan (in addition to a few more hours of sleep) is that you should be able to park for free (most hotels near IAD permit you to park free in their lot for some period of time if you stay overnight with them), saving at least $9 per day.

Never had a 5 PM Sunday or 8 AM Monday departure from IAD, have you?

Seems like a wise move. As others have said, IAD is unpredictable, partially due to logistics that are more complex than at other airports (security line configuration, moon buggies, the whole parking garage game). Anything you can do to remove nodes (and hence uncertainty) in going from your house to IAD is a bonus. gvdIAD's idea of parlaying a few days of free parking from the hotel is a good one

I have a 7:30pm departure 2 Sundays from now. How bad is the security line going to be? I don't plan on bringing check-in luggage.

I haven't had that departure time recently--it used to be not too bad--but I have come back in to IAD on a Sunday evening and seen pretty long lines on a few occasions that seemed to be leftovers from the first banks of international departures.

Could be bad -- Sunday afternoon/evening during the summer means lots of vacation pax and slow security lines. You may be late enough that you can avoid the worst of it, but IME, that's one of the riskier times. Checked bags aren't that much of a factor because the real problem is the security mess.

In general, I'd probably shoot for 75-90 minutes before the flight if you want to make sure you'll make the Sunday PM flight. At 1 hour before, I think you'd still have pretty good odds of making the flight, but if it happens to be one of those really bad days, you might not make it.

The elite line discussed in this thread should be in effect by then (knock on wood), which may help a bit. No way to tell how much benefit it will be since we haven't seen it yet.

I had an early flight from IAD a few Saturdays ago. I arrived at the main termianl around 4:40 a.m. I spent about 30 minutes in the security line. The security line was quite long, though it moved pretty fast.

If IAD adds an elite security line, we won't really know.

But I've seen IAD security lines that take 2+ hours to go through - the one at the UA end went all the way to the DL and the one at the DL end went all the way to the UA end.

I doubt you'll see anything that bad, but then again I've taken to getting dropped off with just carry-on bags before 3 PM for 5:30 or 6 PM Sunday departures just to avoid the post-3 PM crush at IAD on Sunday afternoons. I just go to the RCC and get some work done.

I am sorry but this is useless scare mongering probably based on old anecdotal info, which does not reflect the current situation. I see it time and again here on FT. IAD had long security lines about 2 years ago, but I have never seen any lines extend beyond or even close to filling the "cattle pen" in recent memory.

Wouldn't Friday afternoon be a busy time of the week? Yesterday I left home at 4:35 pm for a 5:50 pm flight. I was at the C17 RCC by 5:10 pm......... Yes, 15 min from drop-off to being in the RCC.

The worst time is typically around 3-3:30 pm when many people arrive early for their 5-5:30 pm international flights.

If you depart around 6 pm then it is good to arrive as late as possible since it becomes quiet after 4:30 pm or so. Similarly in the morning I arrive around 08:15-08:30 for the 09:30 LHR flight. Nary a soul in the terminal at that hour.

If I travel on a Sunday then I would take a late flight after 9 pm since it would be a business trip with a Monday am appointment. I am sure that I have arrived Sunday afternoon/evening and have not noticed anything special.

Anyway, after July 11 things will change......

Also, if someone says that they had to wait 30 minutes at 04:40 then it's because they are undermanned at that very early hour and the worry-worts are all there bright eyed and bushy tailed. Maybe they open up more positions after 05:00? But I am still skeptical because when things were at their worst 2 years ago then a line snaking frombeyond the 1K check-in up beyond SAS and back again would not take more than 30 min!

But you also had to be smart and choose good departure times.... Like, avoid 8 am, 4:30 pm domestic flights, for example.

Sorry to say, but your new anecdotal information does not reflect the current situation at all. Perhaps you're travelling at off times... though I must admit that Friday afternoon is usually a busy time.

Wednesday, June 14 I had a flight in the AM out of IAD. Luckily, I was just transferring from CHO (gotta love it), but my business partner arrived at IAD 2 hours before the flight and waited 1 hour 30 minutes at security and barely made the flight.

But you're right ... choosing a good travel time is best. Late morning, early evening ... that works best at IAD. And yes... after July 11, everything will change! (And if you believe that, I've got a 1K membership to sell you). ;)

Yes, at 5am, new lines opened up. After that happened, it only took me 10 more minutes to get through (out of security at 5:10 am).

By the way, here is another complaint about IAD, and specific to UA: The RCCs at IAD open at 6am. The RCC at DCA opens at 5am, just to support one 6am flight to DCA. There are a number of 6am-ish UA flights from IAD and yet IAD RCCs don't open til 6am. Seems stupid to me.

Considering I've been a bit later than 3 PM in getting dropped off at IAD on a Sunday a few times in the past months, and found the check-in lines were overflowing almost out the door, with a huge rush of passengers just beginning to hit the security lines, I'd say you're wrong.

And the anecdotal evidence of the people who I have conversations with who got to IAD after 3 PM on those Sundays also indicates you're wrong.

I dare you to show up at 5 PM for a 6PM departure on a summer Sunday.

Use online check in before you to the airport! Day before would be best.

While you might be able to use the kiosk's, I have gotten there on a monday morning at 6 AM and they all said "closed". I was so glad to have that home printed boarding pass.

later in the morning and in the early evening can be very packed and all the cattle lines fill up. TSA apparently removes staff and closes lines during the day to make sure they always have a nice big line.

Ditto on the RCC opening time issue. Do they all open at 7 evern day

Moved to the Washington DC forum for the sake of future searching and where it can join similiar threads.

cblaisd
Moderator, United