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Comment by ryguytilidie | Hacker News Reader

These are some suspect numbers. An hour to "finish packing in the morning", why not do that before you wake up? An hour to check in? I've flown hundreds of times and think this has taken 30 minutes once or twice. An hour for security? Last few times I went, it was less than 15, even without TSA Pre.

I mean, sure, if we inflate the numbers badly on one side, that side starts looking worse, but what is the point?

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I think if you ignore the specifics, and just change it to “6am - arrive at airport 2 hrs before flight”, it’s pretty normal. They recommend you arrive at least an hour ahead for domestic flights, and if you’re factoring time for things like parking or the risk of traffic delays, arriving 90 - 120 minutes early is reasonable. (It’s what I do an any rate, reasonable or not).

I would basically never take a 1 hour flight (unless it’s a connection). It’s just not worth it. A train or bus is more comfortable and less of a hassle.

(It’s suspect to include packing for the flight but not the bus, though. Whether you have to do that has nothing to do with your mode of transportation.)

Have you flown from the Bay area to LA area. It's so much easier than driving. There's numerous airports on each end. Flights on Southwest are cheap or you can fly semi private on boutique air for about double but still not very expensive compared to these buses.

Finally traffic can be terrible even in the middle of nowhere on i5. The train is too slow or doesn't go where you need to be so isn't useful.

Agreed but part of the problem with flying is the expected vs actual. Airlines suggest you arrive 2 hours before your flight because if everything goes badly it can take that long to get to your gate, but when it all works well you end up sitting for an hour and a half at that gate.

That said, this is a bay area service and SFO security lines are much worse than say San Jose (SJC) security lines simply because there are more flights out of SFO. If you're regular airport is SJC you might regularly only get to the airport an hour before your flight leaves.

"PreCheck". Stylized as "Pre√".

Want it discussed as clearly as possible so we can abolish that particular form of authoritarianism ASAP.

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