USVI-On-Line

Four in our group are flying out tomorrow on US Air out of Philly, stopping in Charlotte. They were told to be at the airport THREE hours ahead of time. Their flight is at 8am.

We are leaving out of Manchester, NH Saturday. Our flight leaves at 7am and stops in Philly. They told me one hour for check-in. I asked Five times. So what is the deal? Manchester is much smaller than Philly, is that the reason?

Thanks,
Andrea

Philly at that time of the day can be a zoo. Two trips ago, we needed every bit of the 2 hours.

In Feb we gave ourselves 2 hours for a 7am-omething flight to San Juan. The US Air check-in was nearly out the door at 5:30 am. The line moved fairly quickly but we got held up at security, which again was a zoo because it seemed like every other woman was trying to take a giant bottle of hairspray in her carry-on. (80's girls - think of the old VaVoom bottles and you get the picture)

Much verbal confrontation ensued, which slowed the process.

When it comes to Philly/US Air - 3 hours is not ridiculous but I tend to err on the side of caution.

Philly is iffy. I don't think you need more than 2 hours. Sometimes that feels like 6 hours to me with three kids whining in line. You should be good with 2 that time in the morning. The us air desk get's very crowded, but moves quickly.

Manchester is delightful. I let my daughter fly in and out of there to visit my sister. Philly and BWI are the local scary airports because so many travelers start their travels there.

Can you check in a head of time and then go to the kiosk to check your luggage at Philly USAIR?

I'm actually going to have to deal with business travelers tomorrow morning at Washington National - grumpy people, I'm usually one.

Cheers, RickG

We flew out of Philly on a 7:30 a.m. flight in Feb. It was a Saturday. We got to the airport around 5:20 and the line was quite long as they seemed to only have 2 people behind the counter. About 15 min. later, they opened a few more and it went fast. We were sitting at the gate by 6:00 am, coffee in hand. Not too bad, but it could have just as easily gone the other way. Not sure what it would be like on a weekday. I'd be comfortable getting there no less than 2 hrs early.

Wow!!! 3 hours ahead of time at Philly! Our trip from Philly to STT was last month, got there 2 hours ahead of time...took 50 minutes to get thru check-in...got upstairs to security and took another 45 min. By the time we got to the gate they were starting to board. Now this was around Easter, so it was very very busy. I think 3 hrs is alittle extreme, but I would def be there 2 hrs ahead, not a sec less.

We flew out of Manchester at the start of the school break two weeks ago (a very busy time in New England). It was a breeze! We arrived 2.5 hours early to try to get into boarding group A (Southwest Airlines - ended up in C anyway). We used the curbside check-in which took all of 3 minutes, and then practically walked right through security. After that we had a 2 hour wait to board. The airport didn't seem terribly busy, but our flight was completely full. All in all, it was an almost completely stress-free process, even with two kids. I absolutely love flying out of MHT!

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