Flying out of PHL early AM on a Tues. How good or bad is it?

[joxer1014]

Flying on SW mid week out of PHL with a 7am flight. Wanting to know if the lines at security is back to pre Covid levels. Thinking that we should be there around 430 - 500 to check bags. Last time we flew the line was all the way back to the baggage claim elevators. This was pre Covid so it was a while ago. Also do they still bring the dog out to sniff the line so you can leave your shoes on?

 

[bigcrit]

I am flying out in 12 days. According to PHL website, you should arrive two hours early, the same as before. Good luck and please report back if something was different.

 

[MrKnight]

Not sure about PHL specifically but most flights to MCO are typically full and very busy. Most US airports are back to normal operations and TSA checkpoints are back to pre-covid crowd levels at most airports, I would certainly recommend arriving to the airport AT LEAST two full hours prior to your flight departure time. At MCO, I would recommend arriving THREE hours prior to flight departure time, crowd levels at MCO have been extremely high and congested, MCO is one of the busiest airports in the US, especially right now.

 

[Lynne G]

I have pre check, but I still get to the airport at around 4:30 am for a 6:40 am flight. I always give myself at least 2 hours to get through security and relaxing for a few minutes before boarding. Only good thing, traffic at that early hour is usually not as busy.

But the airport can be busy, even early morning. Though I would assume mid week would be slightly less people, as many travel Thursday through Monday mornings. Will let ya know next month, as we will be leaving on an early Sunday morning flight. And crossing everything thing that flight does not get changed in time. I like crack of dawn flights.

 

[honeymo78]

I flew out of PHL on Sun 6/27 arriving sometime between 4:30 and 5am for a 6:50am flight on SW. Two of us had precheck and one didn't. The normal security line took maybe 15 minutes, if that, and there were only 2-3 people in the precheck line. The real wait/mess was to check our bags at the SW counter. There was a huge line for Frontier almost in the same spot as where the SW lines were so finding the right line could be a challenge (I had flown in April and knew about this mess already). SW had 2 lines - one to get to the kiosk to print boarding passes/luggage tags and a separate line to go up to the counter to actually check bags. This probably took 15-20 minutes. Hopefully curbside check-in returns soon (maybe it's back now?) to PHL. SW at MCO had a similar hot mess for baggage check in, but curbside is back in operation for SW at MCO.