Queue time

[markmai]

Hi peeps. Not posted on here for ages. Most probably get shot down now. I leave on Sunday for Palma. I will arrive at the at around 4am flight leave at 6am. Do anyone know if that will be enough time. TIA

[lfc84]

In a day or so have a look on flightstats website and it will tell you what's departing on Sunday morning. You can then determine for yourself what time to arrive and make a guess about what the queues will be like

[markmai]

Cheers lfc84

[viscount]

First wave departures in the morning are the most concentratedly busy times of day for passenger departure throughput, with all the overnight stopping aircraft leaving within around 90 minutes. Being in the Terminal two hours before departure should be sufficient, provided you don't hang around but join the search-comb queue immediately. If you have to first join the queue to hand over hold baggage, then allow extra time on top of the two hours for that too! I experienced first-wave departures at Malaga, Bristol, Edinburgh, Norwich and Amsterdam during July, with the exception of Norwich (where we were the only departure!), 1 hour 10 minutes was the longest search-comb queue wait (Edinburgh) from joining to looking for gate number once through, Bristol and Amsterdam around 55 minutes.

On your return, if Palma is anything like Malaga, leave time not only for search-comb but also for Passport control. At Malaga where the search comb has plenty of channels and staff so the wait there was only 10 minutes or so, with time unexpectedly on your hands, once airside it is only human nature to then dilly and daly with duty-free and a coffee - don't! Way down at the end of an otherwise empty corridor is the Passport Control trap. They take their time scanning, studying and finally stamping every British passport, so even a short queue takes time to process and being a Police department are generally understaffed. A queue time around 30 minutes eats very heavily into the 'be at the gate 40 minutes before departure' advice! So once airside in Spain and on a flight to the UK, buy your Duty Free on the run, go directly to the gate, then look around for a coffee, cake and the loo!

From the low fares around at present, aircraft are not full, so queues hopefully will not be as long for you as they were in peak summer. Airports too have had time to recruit and train extra security staff. Certainly currently, the extraordinarily crowded, painfully slow, watch-watching, collective rising panic of winding caterpillar queuing for search-comb takes a great deal of the pleasure out of the airport travel experience.

Wish you the best of luck with your transit through airports, and hopefully we might see some photos of aircraft at Palma on your return?




PS Have noted your reply. I'll be in direct touch by PM shortly.

[markmai]

Hi Viscount. I will post photos if I can figure out how.

[ametyst]

I have travelled through Liverpool extensively over the last 3 months, at various times of the day, and my longest wait was 15 minutes which was a one off. I have normally been through in about 5 to 7 minutes.

A word of warning, photography is not allowed in the search comb area.

[silvercity]

Travelling to Athens, at airport now, on Lufthansa, checked in and through security in 15 mins. Airport busy, four scanners operating