Airport overnight?
 

Does anyone know whether airports that don't have any flights departing or arriving between 12:00 and 6:00 a.m. actually shut down at night? As in, does security or the police posted at the airport actually go through the terminal and make sure there's nobody hanging around?

For the most part they leave you alone as long as you are not up running around acting weird. They know that people get stuck and have no choice. You just have to put up with cleaning crews. SAN shuts down for the most part at 11:30 except for a couple late arrivals until about 5am when people start showing for the first 6:30 departures, and they let you stay. They used to have a Starbucks that was 24hrs but I don't know if they still do.

Also see Sleeping in airports, a website dedicated to overnighting in airports.

It depends on the airport and often enough on whomever is working there (or not working there).

Plenty of airports that are "shut down" for the night are tolerant of passengers staying the night for an early morning or next day flight.

A website dedicated to sleepinginairports - whoda thunk it? They even have some reviews of MSN, which is where I'll be spending a night soon ... thanks for the great info!

I've spent more nights than I want to remember in airports. My last such experience was at Chicago O'Hare, where I hunted in vain for a dark quiet corner in which I could curl up for the night. I ended up stretched out on a set of seats, with cleaning crews working behind me. Not fun, but I did get several hours of badly needed sleep before heading off again in the morning.

Bruce

DEN is fine. We were severely delayed coming in from LHR, and at 3:30am there were about a dozen people camping out around concourse B.

fwiw my observations about my airport, msy
 

MSY is in the suburb of Kenner, a very dangerous place for a person to be put out on the street at night. (When we lived in Kenner, we were shot at while minding our own business in our own home on Christmas Eve.) As far as I know, even after the airport is effectively "closed" with no more flights scheduled for the night, if you are stranded, you are still allowed to sleep there on the highly uncomfortable benches or even on the floor if you must. It would certainly be better to do that, than to go wandering around that area in the dark, if the airport hotels with free shuttles are out of the stranded traveler's budget. When arriving for the first flight of the morning, I sometimes spot a handful of people who appear to have slept there -- maybe one or two obvious homeless guy, maybe one or two young backpacker type. So it appears that it can be done if necessary. You will have to pass through security again, because they are sleeping landslide. They don't appear to allow them to sleep airside, at least not in the Northwest/US Air terminal, which is indeed completely shut down and blocked off for some portion of the night.

Unless something has changed, it stays open here at night for stranded psgrs.

The gist of it is that unless the weather in Madison changes drastically, I will not be a stranded passenger. To anyone paying attention, they will probably notice that I flew to MSN, hung out for awhile, and turned around and flew out about 5 hours later. I don't plan on sleeping in the airport, want to put the time to good use, addressing wedding invitations, writing a report for work. I'm just taking my computer bag, snacks and a toothbrush, a bit of cash, a credit card and my ID.

I've been looking around the site and haven't found anything that addresses the ins and outs of mileage runs, just info on deals, prices, etc. Such as, if you plan on staying in an airport overnight, is it best to leave the gate areas and come back through security at the usual time prior to departure? Maybe I'm being paranoid, but since I fly weekly for work and have a honeymoon trip coming up, I don't want to do anything to cause me to be on any "radar'.

It seems that many of the posts concerning mileage runs refer to trips taken for a purpose, be it lunch with someone or to see someplace, don't see anything about someone flying somewhere, turning around and flying back home a few hours later without leaving the airport, for the sole purpose of racking up miles. Do the airlines have an opinion about this?

Thanks for any info!

It depends on the airport really. Just go ask someone if you need to.

TPA shuts down the airsides, but i don't know if they sweep them for pax - they stop letting people who aren't airline/airport employees get on the trams to the airside at a certain time.

ATL let me run around pretty much all night. Delta even supplied a bag of fresh new blankets and pillows. Staying on the airside is safer, so stay there if you can. Anyone can get into and out of the main building of an airport easily - so if you drift away to sleep you might lose a bag or cell phone.

ATSgrl.... I seem to recall a huge thread here somewhere about "same day turnarounds" - both domestic (which I've done in the US) and International (which I've done SYD-AKL-SYD).. without ever leaving "airside"..and in fact - on the AKL jaunt.. without actually entering that country! :D

IME airlines don't actually care.....after all - you've paid for the travel! You may get a curious FA asking about it.. especially if they see you on 2 flights in a row..:D They do tend to understand Mileage/Status running.. well.. the ones I spoke to sure did....;)

It depends on the airport (and sometimes the terminal also).

Difficult to stay airside at AKL overnight but easy enough to stay landside in international terminal (but not domestic). Ditto CHC. WLG used to not allow anyone staying overnight. HLZ let me stay inside when they locked up for the night.

Other airports like BKK and SIN there are hundreds of people sleeping (or trying to) overnight.

deleted

Change drastically it did
 

I guess all one has to do is think something won't change and sure enough, it does. Got as far as MSP, only to have the flight to MSN, and indeed any destinations in Wisconsin, parts of Minnesota, and I think O'Hare, cancelled due to weather. My options were to turn around and fly home, which wouldn't get me the segments I'm after, or find a flight, with an open seat, no less, that is within 300 miles of MSN. So here I sit at DTW. I found a quiet corner in a children's play area with a small table I put to good use while I worked on my wedding invitations. I couldn't get a flight back to MSP until 12:02 p.m., but am on standby for the 0630 flight and if necessary, the 0850 and one more before 12:02 p.m. If I can't get an earlier flight than that, I can't fly to FSD until 10:00 p.m., which shoots a whole 24 hours and would really bite, since I have to leave at 0600 on Monday a.m. for SNA for work. #@%& weather!

I did ask the nice lady on the phone with NWA if I could give up my seat on the flight to DTW,which was overbooked, fly back to FSD from MSP, but still get the segments for either the cancelled MSN flight or the DTW. I think if she could have found a way to do it for me she would have.

Now I'm just waiting for Caribou Coffee to open ... :cool:

Are you in the McNamara ?

Airside ?