Arrival time at Buffalo airport??

[Disneyof3]

I know usually you should be at the airport 2 hrs. before your flight and that sounds reasonable to me. What happens though if you check in on line 24 hrs before your flight, should you still be there 2 hrs. before your flight?? Example: We are staying the night before at a hotel near Buffalo airport. Our flight leaves at 5:50 in the morning, do we really need to be there 2 hrs before our flight. We are checking in at home in Canada 24hrs before our flight. I see why they need us but I figured a 1/2 hour sleep longer the better. Thanks ahead for the help.

 

[deltachi8]

I don't believe Security even opens until 4:30 AM, so I would wait until then to arrive. If your flying on a weekday, the security lines at Buffalo are longest between 6-8AM, though usually the longest wait is about 30 minutes.

 

[lustergirl]

you should have no problem arriving and hour and a half before your flight time- Buffalo is a small airport!!

 

[parmtoo]

Our flight leaves BUF @ 540am and I figure we need to be @ the airport by 4am, yikes!

 

[disneyfan2]

We arrived to Buffalo 2.5 hrs early for our flight last year and all the security kept saying "you realize you are 2.5 hours early" I thought that was weird until we waited at the gates and were the only people there til almost 1.5 hours before flights. Many people showed it up around 1 hr before. The people said we really didn't need to be there that early but us Cnd are used to being at TO airport 3+ hrs early.. Now that Southwest will have assigned # with the A,B, C you really have no need to get there for the line ups. But be safe and get there around 2hrs then you can walk around and grab Breakfast and not have to be in line too early.
Because you are staying the night and are there very close, you won;'t have to take into consideration the trafic or boarder delays.

 

[2Princes2Princesses]

We never worried about it. Then on Monday, 10/15, our flight was at 7:30 am. We arrived at the airport around 6. I waited 25 minutes to check our bags with SW and then we went to get in the security line...it extended from the checkpoint, out to the main area and curled around twice. We were pulled by an airport employee to go through the handicapped line with the strollers, which was about 1/10 the length of the regular line. It took us another 35 minutes to get through that line. DH said he wondered if we would have missed the flight if she hadn't pulled us.

There were several people who came on the plane huffing and puffing like they ran to the gate after we had already boarded. If you are flying SW, I don't know how they are at other airports besides BUF and MCO, but everytime we take off from here, the SW flight crew is like "get on, sit, we are leaving now!" I guess since it is small, they can get out quicker, so they try to (probably helps the on time stats ).

It is a small airport, but it can and does get extremely crowded. Especially on Monday mornings. I would hate to see you underestimate it and miss your flight.

 

[Disneyof3]

Well guys since I started this thread we have finally booked our flight back now too. Now we are flying with Jetblue both ways and can't wait. Deltachi8 you said you didn't think that security opens until 4:30 am, so I figure if we get to the airport (across the road from hotel) at about 4am we should be good for security and stuff. We are leaving during the week and I heard that this could be a busy time with business people. Thanks again for everyone's help.

 

[noahdove]

Actually, the hotel can tell you the time to be there. I did this a few years ago and the hotel staff, since they were taking me over told me what time to be in the lobby..they were great Good luck