Leave at 10 pm, arrive at 8 am in Austria, connecting train to a village in the middle of the Alps, get some last minute supplies, start hiking at 10 am, arrive at the mountain hut at 5 pm. Not really feasible with air travel without spending a night in the valley where you don't actually want to be as 2 or 3 pm is too late to start the hike. Admittedly that is a very specific example.
For city travel, I've had good experiences with hotels that let me check in early (before noon). I've never had a hotel that wouldn't let me stash my luggage before check-in.
They ask you to be there early just to be sure, but you don't have to, it's at your own risks.
I've done 30 mins at smaller European airports no problems. Online check-in, only carry-on luggage, 10 minutes for security and you board among the lasts with minutes to spare. Of course you don't have a lot of margins if anything goes wrong, but at airports you know it's definitely doable.
Not only that, but sometimes it is only Ryanair / Wizzair / etc. that fly in a reasonable time of day, and not too early / too late. Last time we traveled to Porto, it was the ONLY choice that was arriving / departing at a time that was not midnight or 6 AM. It was even cheaper than the rest. Oh, and it was pretty much the only direct flight from Vienna... So we bought all the priority / luggage / optional extras we could, and the price was on pair with the rest. No delays, no problems, no complaints.
> It's also about saving a night's worth of hotel/accommodation money
How so? By flying, you can leave home a day or more later, and still get to your destination the same time.
Train case: Monday morning, leave your house and get on a train. Monday night, sleep on the train. Tuesday evening, get off the train at your destination and check into a hotel.
Plane case: Tuesday morning, leave your house and get on a plane. Tuesday evening, get off the plane at your destination and check into a hotel.
Either way, the first night you're paying for a hotel is Tuesday night. And it's not like you save on rent money by leaving home a day early.
With a plane, I leave at 10:00 in the morning, arrive at say 14:00 in the other city and check into a hotel at 15:00.
With a train, I leave at 22:00 in the evening before, arrive at say 10:00 in the other city and check into a hotel at 15:00.
Same amount of hotel stays. A few more hours in the other city. But since I have to carry around my luggage and don't have a shower and toilet, I am not sure if those hours are a plus or a minus.
True. In Europe we don't have TSA and yet one still would be wise to arrive at least an hour before departure (if one has checked baggage; half an hour otherwise) to an airport which is usually located 30+ minutes from the center of the city.
Times always add up like this - 0.5h to get to the airport, 1.5h on the airport, X h of flight and then up to 0.5h to leave the airport and another 0.5h to get to the city.
Or unless you take a night train. Get in in the evening, sleep most of the way and wake up at your destination. That can actually save you time compared to a flight, or be a lot more comfortable than, e.g., getting up at 4 AM to take a flight to a meeting in the morning somewhere.
I flew from Geneva to London City Airport the other day. Check in closed 45 minutes before the flight, and it's so convoluted to get through the airport that after checking in right at the deadline, I had a brisk walk through the airport for 30 minutes to arrive halfway through boarding. I would not want to arrive any later, and anyone who didn't want to rely on short lines at security moving fast would be well off to arrive at least an hour before takeoff.
1) You have to appear at least 1.5 hour before departure (luggage drop, security checks)
2) You have to drive to an airport and back, might take hours in some cases unless you live close enough (in a big city), but it will usually take not less than 30-50 mins one way
3) It takes up to 30 minutes to get luggage after landing
Rail:
a) Train stations are in the centers of cities; max 10-15 mins by subway or bus/tram; high-speed trains also stop in many mid-size cities/towns
For a day or weekend trip to Amsterdam without hold luggage, 60 or even 45 minutes in advance is plenty (whereas, contra the article, 30 minutes before a Eurostar departure is not enough in standard class), and Schiphol airport is very organized and only a 20 minute train ride from central Amsterdam.
I don't think so. I travel regularly to Sydney for work, the flight we catch to get a full working day has a check-in at 5am. None of my colleagues who I travel with have this problem.
I try and deal with it by avoiding early flights if possible and flying the day before and staying the night but it's not always convenient with schedules, etc.
I mean, I can be at the train station fairly quickly (10 minute walk): The airport is out of town and I'd take a bus - an earlier bus than I think I need just to be safe. Does the flight mean that you get a hotel that you could skip on a night train? How long are you waiting at the airport?
After 1.5 million lifetime miles, much of it intercontinental, it boils down to 2 rules for me:
- Flying East to Europe: Get out in the sun after landing and don't fall asleep until at least 8:00 PM local time.
- Flying West to Asia: Stay on US time. Go to sleep at 6:00 PM local time, get up at 2:00 AM. Obviously, avoid evening appointments. If that isn't possible, at least schedule them after you've been in country a couple of days.
Is that possible for international flights? My impression is that you're kinda forced to get there super early. But maybe I'm doing this wrong.
I'm also used to doing international flights from cities where the airport is super far away. For example Charles De Gaulle is still a 45 minute train ride away from a lot of useful stuff. DFW's a bit out there too.
The dream is obstensibly Shinkansen-style "get there in the morning, leave in the evening and be back before bedtime" flows. Is that doable with smaller international flights already?
Boarding closes somewhere between 30-15mins before the flight, if you travel without luggage I’m pretty sure it should be possible to be at the airport around 45 mins before the flight and still make it, especially in an all business class configuration with fast track.
On my last flight between New York and Paris passport control and security didn’t take more than 5 minutes on a European passport (both in Paris and New York).
I think the bigger problem is the time you lose and uncertainty (immigration and traffic) door to door in these big cities, which limits the use-cases and might make an overnight flight or a direct connection from a general aviation airports preferable.
You make good points. Personally I have problems timing flights even with "fast" airports. I usually end up at the airport way too early. But then I'm not so much of a frequent flyer and my employer asks me to take the train to nearby destinations (mostly ZRH -> FRA). I don't mind watching the landscape rolling by while working.
Yes, for some connections you'd have to change in Bern.
> you don't have check-in and don't have to travel to the airport first.
Tou do have to travel to the train station first, though. Which, depending on where you live relative to the city may take longer than getting to the airport.
For city travel, I've had good experiences with hotels that let me check in early (before noon). I've never had a hotel that wouldn't let me stash my luggage before check-in.
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