NTKOG #184: The kind of laid-back traveler who starts packing half an hour before boarding time, then cuts in front of everyone at the security gate with the excuse: “I can hear my plane’s engine revving!”
I am: the chillest, most laid-back person you’d ever hope to meet — right up until I set a single molecule in an airport. At which point, I start physically vibrating and loudly demanding capital punishment for slow-walkers.
I am not: wrong about the slow-walker thing. If you do this, I hate you.
The Scene: Bay Area, winding down an enchanting weekend with The Ex. Conundrum: I wanted to squeeze every last second out of the weekend, but my airport neuroses require me to be sitting at the gate two hours before boarding time, even for a domestic flight out of a dollhouse-sized airport.
I’ve been mocked for my tyrannical airport attitudes before. Justice and The Ex are both notorious second-splitters, and have reassured me that the world will not end if I’m not the first person seated in my boarding group. But Justice is Russian, so she’s profoundly uncomfortable when not in the physical act of cutting someone in line; as for The Ex, well, he once missed a flight to eat a bowl of clam chowder, so who is he to give me airport advice?
Still, for the first time in my life, I was going to Cut It Close. My boarding time was 8:30PM for a 9:00PM flight.
6:00PM: Putter around, snacking on jalapeno jelly with The Ex. Start to think about packing. Vajazzle instead.
6:30PM: Triple-check to make sure I’m checked into the flight. Pack. Angst.
7:00PM: Run around the house like a madwoman, telling The Ex if we don’t get out the door RIGHT NOW, I’m going to have a stroke.
7:17PM: Actually get out the door. Fret that we’re not going to get to the airport ’til after 8.
7:31PM: Get to the airport.
7:33PM: As we drive toward the terminals, note that the airport is absolutely dead. The Ex asks if I want to pull into short-term parking to hang out for a bit, just to really press the experiment. I ask what we’d even do for half an hour.
7:33-8:00PM: We figure out what to do for half an hour. (Oh don’t be gross. We just talked and sang along to the CD in the car. More or less.)
8:01PM: Skip brightly into the terminal, ID in hand, ready to zip through security. Take a long look around at the ghostly conveyor belts before realizing — fuck, completely wrong terminal. Grab an employee’s shoulder and barely refrain from shaking it while shrieking, “JetBlue! JetBlue! Right now! Where?!” He tells me I’m in good time for the flight and a five-minute shuttle should be along any minute from bus stop 4.
8:03PM: Hang up from frantic phone call to The Ex to board shuttle. Whatever. I should be there by 8:10 — plenty of time to board.
8:12PM: Wait a minute, why are we going into long-term parking? Bus driver calls out “Parking Lot, Stop A”. It’s the wrong bus. He sent me to the wrong goddamn bus. Sweat profusely.
8:23PM: “Parking Lot, Stop M!” I ask the bus driver how many more parking-lot stops there are; he looks at me like I’m crazy: “It’s the alphabet. So, uh, 26.” I call The Ex and curse. A lot.
8:31PM: My flight is ACTUALLY BOARDING. We finally wind our way out of the parking lot, begin to approach the terminals, and — the bus stops. The driver radios the station and tells them that his shift is over, can the new driver meet him?
8:32-8:34PM: Look, guys, history may never know what happened here, because I suffered an anxiety-induced black-out, but I ran to the front of the bus and cried. A lot. Was awoken from my panic-stupor by being hurled to the front of the bus as the driver booked it out of the lot and radioed to postpone the back-up driver. I vow to name all of my kids — fuck, actually, totally forget his name.
8:40PM: Run into the terminal, sweating, crying, and bleeding a little from where my bag has ripped open my ankle. Self-check kiosk rejects me because I’m too late. Ask security guard what to do and he gestures to the ten-person check-in line. “Don’t worry, you have twenty minutes. That’s plenty of time.” Regret that I don’t have a spare moment to throttle him.
8:47PM: Beg people in front of me checking in for 10pm flight to let me cut them, on grounds that I was told wrong bus. All acquiesce sweetly except fellow in front of line, who is checking on my same flight. “What’re you worried about?” he asks, with hateful calm. “We have plenty of time.”
8:48-8:51PM: Check in, get through security, and run past eight gates to my own, hurtling over wayward children and wheelchair-dudes in my wake. Oh yeah, guys. In three damn minutes. As I sprinted out of the security line, the guard stopped me with a suspicious/amused look. “Why are you running? Your plane leaves in ten minutes. Everything will be fine.” I run backwards, shouting, “Nothing will be fine! Nothing will ever be fine again!” Yeah. Clearly no security risk here.
8:54PM: Board the dang plane. First person on in my boarding group. All is as it should be again.
The Verdict: This was single-handedly the most terrible thing I’ve ever done. I will now resume my regular airport activity of arriving at the gate early enough to eat two meals and read half a novel there. And the next dude who tells me not to worry about missing a flight is getting a faceful of justice-rage punches.
I realize that most of this had to do with the bad luck of being directed to the wrong shuttle (and the oversight of not double-checking with the driver), but seriously, I’m scarred for life. Are you guys airport worriers as well? How much time do you usually allow?
{ 53 comments… read them below or add one }
I cut it waaay too close for your liking. If I have to wait at all in the boarding area, I was too early. I want to get right through security and go right onto the boarding line.
I’m not good at waiting.
I am always worried that the airline will lose my luggage.
This is my first comment here (have been reading for a while though!) but this post is seriously my nightmare! I think I actually had an anxiety attack while reading this post. I am a get there VERY early kind of girl. My husband, on the other hand, is a cut it close kind of guy. I have managed to get him to come to my side by promising him drinks if we get there early enough.
I get this trait from my father. For most of my (brief) adult life, I have lived overseas (the husband is English). The conversation I would have with my dad before each return trip back to the UK was utterly predictable. Two or three days before the flight, he would suggest that we leave the house at around 4pm for my flight (which would always be at 6:30pm). The airport was about 15 minutes from the house. The day before, he would approach me and suggest we leave at 3:30 – just in case there was traffic. On the actual day of the flight, we would always leave at exactly 2:45. Getting me to the airport at 3. Perfect.
!!! Your dad is an American hero! That’s exactly what I consider optimal airport strategy! My family is much the same way: we always end up leaving half an hour earlier than we agreed. It’s just the safest way to go!
Of course, my dad takes it to the extreme, and likes to be at the airport many, many hours before his flight, but because he’s usually traveling weird stuff like knives and lighter fluid on international flights for his job, I definitely see his side of things! (Although it never stops me from suggesting we drop him off at the airport the night before for any pre-10AM flight.)
I was thinking the same thing. This post is ripped from one of my recurring nightmares, and I might be hyperventilating a little bit right now.
I would rather sit around the airport for hours than have that close of a call. The thing is, the day I am flying I am pretty much all focused on the traveling anyway, and all I will do to pass time at home is read. Which I can do at the airport, without having to force myself back to my book every 10 minutes because I can’t stop checking the clock.
When I do fly (three times in my entire life) I need to be early. I feel the exact same way as Megs. I’m thinking about maybe missing my flight all day long, oblivious to every thing else anyway, why not sit at the airport and read whatever book I’m enchanted with at the moment – already reassured I will not be late to the airport. I will be practicing this super early arrival practice in July – no question.
I love flying, but part of that is because I don’t do the hurried flight thing. I leave early, bring a book, make it a relaxing experience. If I am sprinting, there better be some damn tape and gatorade involved. End of story. Airports were made for gracefully floating.
AAAGH even reading that gave me like forty panic attacks. I’m the one who would rather ‘just wait by the gate for four hours’ than risk not seeing the exact moment when they begin boarding. SO STRESSFUL!
i love this post. i am also notorious for arriving to the airport excessively early. have you ever taken bart to the airport? it requires much more strategic planning to take into account the time it takes for the proper bart train to come+ the bart ride+the shuttle ride from the bart to the airport. it’s so overwhelming. my husband and i almost got divorced once (kidding…sort of) because he made us late enough to the airport that we were “b”‘s on southwest. i had really prided myself on being an “a” my entire life until that flight. my record is now tarnished thanks to him. so, needless to say, i had anxiety just reading about your close call.
Dude, I have indeed taken the BART before — not the prettiest method of travel by any means! Although I used to live mid-way between San Francisco and San Jose, so Caltrain–>BART–>airport shuttle was better than Caltrain–>bus for San Jose.
Also, man, I’m a life-long A on Southwest! A-Group pride! The only two times I was denied A-Group status: once, with The Ex, who’s truly terrible in airports (the truth hurts), and once, when my SuperShuttle driver drove me to THE WRONG DAMN AIRPORT IN RUSH HOUR TRAFFIC. I was in Boarding Group C that day. My pride has never recovered.
I have no problem getting to the airport at the suggested check-in time. Heck, I’ll even push it a little bit. I do have a problem with any change in my flight itinerary.
Example: Mexico City airport does not have those handy monitors to tell you what gate you’re flying out of. Instead, the check-in person sends you to a gate that “might” be yours but to listen for the announcement to go to the real one. My grasp of Spanish is shaky at best, so I was a nervous wreck trying to listen for my real gate. The “real” gate then might end up getting changed four or five more times before you leave. In those three hours, I swear I developed about six ulcers. Don’t even get me started on flight delays…
I am a complete spaz about arriving on time, and by on time, I mean 2+ hours early because I always fear that security, etc. etc. will hold me back!
I am also fairly mild mannered in most situations requiring lines and waiting and more lines – but the airport makes every single one of my hair follicles stand on end and I get every shade of crazy. I completely understand. And while I hate sitting around waiting for my plane to board, I hate even more having to run across airports to get to my correct gate.
And that my friend has happened more than I can count. All because of delayed flights so to make my connecting flight requires mini-marathons across airports. I swear that I’ve ran across more airports than I’ve sat in.
The moral of the story is that you are not the only one who goes all crazy I NEED TO BE THERE 2 HOURS EARLY!
Happy flying!
“I swear that I’ve run across more airports than I’ve sat in.”
haha, me too! But it’s because of the connections!
I’ve started giving myself like 3-4 hour connection times just to be sure this doesn’t happen. So then, of course, we do end up sitting more than running, which isn’t fun either, but at least if I know that some airports suck more than others (CDG and EWR, I am SO looking at you!) and thus require more sitting/running time I can either plan too much layover time or try to plan my trips so that I don’t have to change planes in the really bad ones.
Why can’t they all be as wonderful as the Amsterdam airport?
If I’m by myself for a flight, I’m ALWAYS early. Like, way early. If I have to take public transportation, I fret and swear (and sweat and frer?) that something’ll get delayed.
When I’m with other people, all of that goes out the window. Once showed up at the airport 35 minutes before the flight which was 5 minutes before the check-in counter closed. Yeah, we were the first two people on the plane. And I’m never doing that again.
This post made me laugh so hard! I’m pretty into arriving early for flights/trains etc. But my husband goes a bit overboard with the whole concept. Like if I go to the bathroom after they annouce boarding we might not get on the plane. We recently went overseas, and we were so early for our flight(s) that they weren’t even checking in for them yet. Yeah.. 4 hours in an airport! Not Cool!
Your post made me break out in a cold sweat because it reminded me of my worst ever airport experience:
I hate hate HATE travelling with other people. Once when I was with friends, we arrived so late that security waved us through the sea of people waiting to be x-rayed, called our plane to hold it for us AND re-open the plane’s door to get us on board. Yeah.
To add insult to injury, they gave our seats away, so we were dispersed amongst the cabin. Yeah, I’ve never received so many death stares and icy silences in my life.
I felt like a complete jerkwad and will never, ever do that again. Future co-travellers beware: If you are running late, this chick will leave yo’ sorry tardy ass at the gate.
if my mother has any maxim it is: it’s better to be early than to be late. what this translates into, though, is that i’ve grown up believing that being “on time” is equivalent to being late.
i’m *always* at the airport at least two hours before my departing time, even for domestic flights.
this has also made me a stickler for BEING ON TIME for everything and i get really annoyed when i inevitably show up at least five minutes early for something and then i have to wait ten minutes for whomever i’m meeting.
most recently, i had an appointment at 10:15am and *really* wanted to be there at 10 and almost had a melt down because we left SEVEN minutes before the appointment that was, literally, one minute away from our house.
yay for neuroses!
Three things: 1) The fact that your handle is “brain doc” and you’re discussing neuroses on here basically makes my dang day.
2) Now I’m going through a mental catalogue of all the times I’ve kept you waiting when we met up, and feeling quite lame! Next time we meet up for semi-annual Panera lunch, just tell me a time fifteen minutes before we’re supposed to meet. (But last time, when I was like an hour late, doesn’t count, ’cause my phone told me you lived at the Liberace Museum.)
3) HOLY FRIG YOU’RE GETTING MARRIED IN TWO DAYS!!!!!!!
it’s kind of funny, i’ve been “ordered” to not think about school/lab work this whole week, and yet i cannot stop dreaming about it. brain stuff… it just … sticks in my brain?
also, i totally wasn’t leaving a passive-aggressive note about your tardiness! besides, you call! most people do not bother calling. i still think it’s frickin’ hilarious that your phone directed you to the liberace museum.
and DUDE, I KNOW, IT’S CRAZY, RIGHT??
Dear, wishing you every happiness. Enjoy your wedding. Will you be serving those little drinks in the test tubes that I see at nightclubs? Have a wonderful day.
TKOMom goes to nightclubs? And here I only see them on TV. I am so not cool enough for this blog!
Congratulations, brain doc! (And if you’re not already, totally check out apracticalwedding.com (my favorite wedding/marriage planning blog), especially the “Reclaiming Wife” tag, when you get back from getting wedding-ed.)
Yes, Kahlia dear, TKOMom goes clubbing. We are from Las Vegas, dear, and it is very normal to enjoy all sorts of entertainment. Let me just say “It’s complicated.”
Oh my god, I am a total freak when it comes to airports. I once arrived so far in advance for a flight to London that they could not physically check me in yet. I actually had a similar experience to you a few months ago in India…I lost my boarding pass before going through security and had to head back to the original desk at the last minute to get a new one. I was freaking out and everyone was looking at me like I was totally insane (which, granted I am…but seriously, who thinks that 15 minutes is enough time to get through three rounds of security manned by cold, unfeeling women who don’t speak my language?) Never. Again.
Haven’t been on a plane in YEARS. Next time I will be boarding a flight will be in January to Disney… And I bet you this exact scenario is going to take place. Maybe minus the vajazzling. Maybe.
My mother is a perpetual two-hours-early-at-the-local-terminal (you can’t even call them airports, really, not these small bastards) kind of lady, and getting up at 3 am to get her – by 4 – to the airport that doesn’t even open its doors until 5 for her flight that leaves at 6 has turned me off. I get there an hour early. But I am totally with you on the slow-walkers. Get the F out of my way!
Also, I love layovers because I adore being in airports. I like to 1) check out the book selections. 2) Buy a magazine (even though I brought 3 books along). 3) Find a restaurant which will serve me copious amounts of alcohol and bar-food.
I panic just as much for my flights, but for some reason or other, I am actually astoundingly bad at catching planes. I have literally had to have the gate reopened for me… twice. Eep!
Ah yes… The anxiety gnomes start to hammer away at my brain the moment I wake up on the day of a flight.
Goll-danged technology makes it even worse – as I pack (from a list I’ve been jotting down for the past week or so) I’ll have a browser window with flightstats.com, the airport’s website, and my airline’s website open, refreshing every 20 minutes and freaking out when none of the times match up (and they never do).
When I get to my gate after many deep calming breaths in the car/through security/sprinting to the gate, I’ll usually attempt to read one of the far too many books I’ve brought along and instead repack the things the security checkpoint disturbed. This is the point where I inevitably misplace my boarding pass…
Sweet mother of mystery. Just reading this gave me anxiety.
If I am not there 3 hours early, I freak the hell out. I once was at the airport 5 hours early. Just because. My boyfriend’s family, on the other hand, is a big believer in “Asian lag”. They once gave me a ride to the airport and I nearly broke up with the bf because we were only an hour early. Don’t even mention Thanksgiving flights to me. I once got there half an hour early and the security line was 100 yards long. *dies*
I’m so with you. I was sweating just reading this post…and I follow you on Twitter, so I knew it turned out all right in the end. I love getting to the airport several hours ahead of time and getting lost in a novel.
I used to do the whole two hours thing like you do when I lived in the Northeast but once in college, I moved to outside of Little Rock which is the easiest airport EVER to get though. Quite literally, I once left my apartment forty minutes before my plane, drove the half hour to the airport, went through security, and even had time to grab a bottle of water before I got on my plane. Ah, LIT. I heard once you used to be able to call and they’d hold the plane for you if you were late.
Dear God, this story almost gave me a sweaty, heart-fluttering panic attack!
I arrive at the airport a good three hours early, most of the time. Enough time to suck down 4 venti cups of coffee, read an entire book, and rock out to a few cds.
It’s like a little ME time before you board!
Actually laughing right now while I read this. I love the down to the minute timeline. I felt like I was right there with you screaming and crying at bus drivers/other passengers/airport security/airline employees. I’ve done a ton of traveling in the past week (NY, Minneapolis, and on my way to Philly tomorrow) and can’t imagine going through something like this!
Next time, back to the routine.
I don’t think I have ever been later than an hour early to a flight so I can imagine how you feel. I don’t fly very often and airports make me extremely nervous as it is. The last thing I want to do in life is figure out what to do if I accidentally miss a plane.
That being said I did almost miss a plane once. Not because I was late but because I sat for two hours in the wrong terminal. I finally was like, wow they are boarding late, went and asked, and found out my terminal was all the way across the airport.
Great post. I totally thought this was going to be runway as in fashion runway, and it occurs to me you totally have to walk a runway and write a blog post about it. C’mon, you know you want to!
Dear, have you learned nothing from bc dad? Oh, I pushed it today: we were only 2 hours early to Logan. Let’s go over the EX thing one more time. If he is an EX then when you visit him and Vajazzle does he become a CURRENT? One wonders? Sometimes smart people lack common sense, dear.
THAT’S WHAT I WANT TO KNOW!! Does he revoke the Ex status for an hour? Details!
How many times do I have to plead the fifth with you people? :-) You won’t get any details from me — TMI is TKOG’s specialty, obviously — but, as you may recall, the basic situation is that we had an amicable break-up after sharing some amazing years together. Now we’re thousands of miles apart living our own lives. We’re not “current” even if we happen to see each other. Makes sense, Danielle and TKOMom? I do enjoy being the subject of the readers’ curiosity. :-)
Hmmmm, dear, everyone is different. Suspect Danielle and I are part of the “clean break and move forward club.” Frankly it is none of our business, but it is fun to speculate and tease TKOG and TKOEX. BC dad and I are thousands of miles from TKOG and are “current,” but of course it is all relative.
“all relative”… nice pun!
Also, I admit to totally having been curious about this as well. But would never have dared ask, so it’s a good thing we have TKOMom!
Oh goodness, I forgot to respond to this! The Ex basically covered it, though: we’re very good friends who spent four quite happy years together. If we happen to visit each other and neither of us happens to be attached to someone else, why not indulge in some pleasant nostalgia?
Understood dear. It crystal clear now: rather like the arrangement I have with your dear dads.
Wow, this was incredible.
I hate feeling that I’m going to be late, but consider that being able to keep walking from security control right to my gate is ok, as is arriving there a bit early and settling down with a light but entertaining book (the sort of thing you enjoy, but can put down immediately you need to) for a bit, preferably with a view of airside operations, is good too.
Myself, how early I arrive for a flight is a function of airport size. I’ve travelled out of airports small enough that the departure lounge can’t seat all the passengers for a 60-seater up to major international airports like Miami and Heathrow where it can take half an hour or more just to get from one end to the other.
I’ve actually missed two separate flights. The first time, Husband slept through the alarm for a very early flight (I was downstairs sleeping with my nastily-congested toddler on the recliner) and we arrived at the airport about 15 minutes before the flight took off. The check-in desk wouldn’t check us in, saying we needed 20 minutes to get through security. Cost us $400 (family of 4) to get on a different flight. Ouch.
Second time, we hit 2 *hours* of traffic on the way to the airport. Again with the getting-there-before-the-plane-leaves-but-not-being-allowed-through-security issue. Only $200 to fix things that time.
We’ve learned to either fly out of our local airport (much more expensive but only a 20-minute drive!) or stay in a hotel the night before if we are going to fly out of one of the bigger, much further away airports. And it only cost us $600 to figure this out!
dude, I’m with you. I’m usually not happy unless I’m at my gate before the flight BEFORE mine has boarded. I’m a nutbag. Because what happens if I get there at the last second and they’ve changed the gate on me (and yeah, they don’t always tell you that when you check your bags. Just sometimes.). I need time to decompress as well.
I got this from my mother who likes to allow at least 90 minutes if we’re checking bags, preferably 2 hours though. Early in their marriage (when I was an infant) dad convinced my mom to just allow an hour and they would be fine. After many mishaps, a screaming child (ME!), barely making their flight, and a deathly look from my mom, he has never tried to argue with our airport time preferences again.
I was just discussing with The Boy that airports seem to be my reoccurring anxiety dream place. Every time I have a dream that takes place in an airport (that being every few weeks) I am ALWAYS missing a flight, or the terminal changes, or the trip gets canceled after hurtling ourselves through the maze of an airport and various obstacles like a frat boy party cup pyramid. That said, in real life I get only a little nervous around airports but it’s mostly masked by excitement. (After traveling from Japan to Boston by myself at 14 a few years ago, I thought I had already faced my demons.) It appears that my subconscious, however, hates all airports with a vengeance.
I’m here to tell you that your airport anxiety is TOTALLY WARRANTED. Some airports will actually not allow you to check in once the flight has begun to board (i.e., when there are still 30 friggin’ minutes to go). How do I know this? Because I once tried to check in 29 minutes before my flight, and you know what? THEY EFFING BUMPED ME. The worst part? I had just stood in line for an hour. To get bumped off a flight. On the plus side, I was extremely early for the next flight.
Dude, just reading this post was stressful! Don’t do that to yourself!
When travelling alone, I’m comfortably there just over 30 minutes before they start boarding, which is perfect for me to not rush there or be there too long ahead of time and be bored (even with a good book).
HOWever, I’m now usually accompanied by a Spaniard who seems to think that planes will wait for him. So we start our travel days with me lying to him about the time the flight leaves, then lying to him about the time we have to walk out of the house & the time it’ll take us to get to the airport. Then when we get there early and he notices the board saying what time we’re boarding, he says “hey!” and I say, “Yeah, but we still have to go through security and take out all 3* computers!” And by the time we do that, we’re usually right on time to board comfortably (neither first nor last, which is perfect since we fly with reserved seats).
*Our jobs both depend on having a working laptop, so we have a backup. And did you know that you’re not allowed to put a computer in a checked bag on most airlines? So we have to completely dismantle all carry-on baggage and then put it back together again there in the airport, with no belts or shoes on. fun.
It’s too late to comment on this now. And yet… here I am.
I’m firmly in your camp on this one, but with reservations. I always show up way too early, but then feel like a fool for not cutting it closer.
At least… I USED to have reservations. After reading this, I probably won’t anymore. I’ll enjoy my early-ness. Revel in it. Sit in the hard plastic chair and just mentally roll around in the luxury of spare time before my flight.
I am SO WITH YOU. I need to get to flights 3 hours ahead of time. I just HAVE TO otherwise I’ll be thrown into panic-stricken state of mind that takes essentially until I touch down to get over. And even then its not gone until I’ve claimed my baggage. phew.
This hits home, because I just took 2 international flights back to back and I hit all new anxiety levels. I am actually comfortable with the idea of a 6 hour layover on the way home.
I’m sorry, but this was hilarious. Love it.