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I find myself yearning to spend the last few minutes of my time in the country to be with the people I love.

Given that I'm already in the airport up to the point where non passengers are allowed, how much time should I give myself to go through the processes?

I understand that this might be a question that is very dependent on the airport, but I hope anyone can shed some light.

I notice that if the flight is 9pm, they request the passenger to be at the boarding gate on 8:40pm. How far can I push this?

It would be nice to discuss both cases with and without check in luggage. I'm also not looking for an exact answer like 1 hour. I'm looking for a comprehensive answer like "enough time to go past all checks to arrive 10 minutes before flight departure".

Zaenille
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1 Answers1

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The airline can refuse transportation if you are not at the gate at the boarding time printed onto your boarding pass. They will close the gate after the announced boarding time when there no more passengers waiting next to the gate to be boarded (whatever event comes later). Sometimes they may decide to wait for connecting passengers coming with delayed inbound flights. But that's their choice!

Note that for a 9 o'clock flight, 8:40 is already very late. Boarding times of 45 minutes are quite common and 8:40 leaves only 20 minutes, which is already very tight, as there are ground handling procedures to be performed after everyone is seated. On international flights (and large planes), boarding often starts 60 minutes before departure. So since the boarding time is already tight for your flight, I wouldn't risk being late late for your flight.

The time to go through security and to your gate varies from 5 minutes to more than one hour, depending on the airport, the time of the day, and whether you will be invited to a secondary security check. So we can't give a good answer here.

DCTLib
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