It's been a few years since I've been anywhere by air. I'm booked on a 6.30am flight from East Midlands to Dublin. The airport website says two hours should be allowed for check in. Is this mandatory or advisory? Any thoughts or advice appreciated.
Advisory, but don't forget security checks now take rather longer than they used to. A 6.30am flight might have smaller queues, but I'd not take the chance.
Clive George wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@brightview.co.uk:
Check-in opens 2 hours before. I would aim to be in the queue one hour before the flight - unless you want a breakfast. EMA is a super airport.
Advisory but the gate will often close 20/30minutes before the take-off time and security is a variable. At 2 UK airports last week (Stansted and Edinburgh) getting through security took around 20 minutes BUT previously I have been in a queue for security for closer to an hour.
Also factor in your method of travel, are you travelling by taxi/bus or your own car? Medium and long time car parks are never close to the terminals and the free transfer buses may only be every quarter or half hour. The cheaper the car park charge the longer the interval between buses.
By the way, if someone is dropping you off expect a drop off charge of a couple of quid for the 30 second period (rising to £50 or clamping if you stay longer in these zones)
OMG even micky mouse airports charge for "drop-off" now!
what's it coming to
tim
"tim......" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@mid.individual.net:
I think the drop off charge at EMA is 1.00 for 10 mins.
Great airport. I live 25 mins away and will only take holidays that go from EMA.
They have been taking lessons from Ryan Air and other budget airlines.
At Edinburgh airport you can pay £5 to get into the fast track lane through security. At Stansted it's by invitation (Gold card passengers). East Midlands charges £3 for this "extra" service.
They all have the usual get out clause that minimum/maximum queuing times cannot be guaranteed.
They've also been taking payment from Ryanair etc, who demand lower landing fees. The airport has to make the money up somewhere, so it goes onto the passengers directly.
In message , at 19:28:24 on Mon, 27 May 2013, alan remarked:
The Medium Term car parks at East Midlands are next to the terminal.
In message , at
17:54:29 on Mon, 27 May 2013, Clive George remarked: 6.30am is "Rush hour" at East Midlands airport (seriously).There are 3 flights at 6.30, one at 6.35, one at 6.40, two at 6.50 (and another eight between 7 and 7.20).
And some days there will also be potentially huge charter holiday flights, as well as the low-costs.
Although now BMIbaby is kaput, and Easyjet has pulled out, perhaps there's not as many flights as once there were.
I always used to do online check-in and allow 1 hr before departure. They have a (small fee) fast track if you are in a panic [but I never needed to use it].
Almost all the gates are very close to the exit from security.
If you are checking bags, then I'd allow at least an extra half hour, the queues at the Ryanair desks can be huge.
Check in on line and go straight to security if you have no bags to drop off.
Airlines usually have a check in desk close time. Easyjet will let you jump the queue if it gets close to this close time.
If I have paid for the ticket with my own money then I like to get to the airport in plenty of time.
I had a work colleague who missed a business flight, thus avoiding being in a plane crash. You never know your luck.
Thanks all. I'll be checking in before I go and will have no bags to check in. The car's already booked in to the short-stay car park. (I'm only going for the day.)
Bear in mind that if you're on a scheduled(?) flight that's been overbooked, if you arrive at the last minute then guess who's going to get bounced?
BTDTGTTS :(
In message , at 19:31:25 on Wed, 29 May 2013, Lobster remarked:
Low-costs don't do that. They have many issues, but overbooking isn't one of them.
On Wednesday 29 May 2013 19:31 Lobster wrote in uk.d-i-y:
I got bounced when I was 3 hours early!
To be fair, I could have argued out of it and was in fact doing so when I heard the magic words "and we will give you 300 DM if you divert fromk Munich to Frankfurt"...
That was then about £100, in cash at the Munich Lufthansa office as soon as I wished to look in (next day). The flight cost about £85 return - so I was not complaining...
In message , at 18:28:10 on Wed, 29 May 2013, Peter Johnson remarked:
Ouch! The short stay car park is £30 for 12-24hrs[2]
They appear to have renamed three of Medium-stay car parks as "Long-stay"[1]. They are still next to the terminal.
Prices have gone up a lot since I last used them about three years ago;
2 days £30, 1 day £27. (I was paying £21.40 for 2 days; £26.80 for 3 days, in 2009).Then there's the Express Park, which is another of the old "Medium-stay", and ironically is further (by foot) from the terminal than the now-called Long-stay 1. It's a bit cheaper at £25 for a day,
[1] and the Long-stay as JetPark [2] Presumably with discounts for booking in advanceOn Thursday 30 May 2013 09:36 Roland Perry wrote in uk.d-i-y:
Perhaps not for 24h but once when I went to China from Heathrow with loads of luggage and kids, I used Purple Parking.
Very cost effective for 3 weeks and they relieve you of your car near checkin and you phone them when you are in arrivals and by the time you finally escape, the bloke and your car are waiting for you.
They basically shive your car in a field 10(??) miles away from the airport which is cheap. Of course you pay for the valet function but it is nothing compared to a taxi home or long term airport parking.
Usually we take the train - but sometimes there is just too much to carry and even the train is not cheap...
In message , at 11:15:59 on Thu, 30 May 2013, Tim Watts remarked:
I used something like that at Birmingham when going on a family holiday, but decided that the saving over two sets of £50 for cab fares wasn't worth the hassle.
£19.99 when I first looked was £30 by the time I wanted to book but booking direct with Airparks, the carpark operator, reduced it to £25 then Google found me a 10% off Airparks voucher code.
That's not being bounced then - we had no choice and lost half a day of our family holiday courtesy of Air Malta; can't remember how they compensated us but it was pretty pathetic IIRC. Weren't even last to arrive but we got flagged as a 'convenient' group of 5 people to lose off the flight (ie why pick a fight with 5 individuals over one family.
Couple of years ago, son and I were flying home overnight from Miami to Manchester (US Airways IIRC?); hideously overbooked as they'd downsized the plane. They asked for volunteers to take an alternative flight, via Dublin... we were first in the queue, and got upgraded to business class for a very comfortable overnight flight, and were also given almost enough airmiles to make another economy US flight each!
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