The Best and Worst Times to Fly - May Edition
A living guide to beating the dreaded airport security queue
We’re back with another edition of our Best and Worst Times to Fly. This time around we are looking at wait time data from April as a predicter of potential future trends. As usual, our analysis is based on averages and individual experiences may vary. All data is from qsensor.co.
We expect to see wait times increase as we head into the busy summer holiday travel season. Let’s see if that’s the case.
Best and Worst times to fly - United States
Below are the hourly averages of 26 of the US’s biggest airports. The table is the average of 4,368 TSA Wait Time data points:
The Worst Times To Fly:
Mornings: 5:00 AM - 7:00 AM where the average wait time is 13 minutes.
Afternoons: 1:00 PM - 4:00 PM where the average wait time is 11 minutes.
The Best Times To Fly:
Mornings: 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM where the average wait time is less than 11 minutes.
Evenings: After 6:00 PM where wait times dip below 10 minutes.
The average wait time is 9 Minutes for US airports. Compared to March, wait times in the US increased by +6%. This is likely driven by increased passenger traffic heading into the busy summer holiday travel season.
Best and Worst times to fly - Europe
These are the hourly averages for 26 of Europe’s largest airports. The table consists of the averages of 4,368 Security Wait Time data points:
The Worst Times To Fly:
Mornings: 5:00 AM - 9:00 AM where the average wait time is 6 Minutes.
Late Afternoon: 3:00 PM - 5:00 PM where the average wait time is 6 Minutes.
The Best Times To Fly:
Mornings: 12:00 PM - 2:00 PM where the average wait time is 5.5 Minutes
Evenings: 7:00 PM or later, where the wait times dip below 5 Minutes.
The average wait time is 5 Minutes. Compared to March, wait times in Europe increased by +3.4%. This is likely driven by increased passenger traffic heading into the busy summer holiday travel season.
Best and Worst times to fly - Canada
We collected the hourly CATSA wait times from 5 of Canada’s largest airports. The airports we analysed were: Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal, Calgary and Edmonton.
The Worst Times To Fly:
Mornings: 4:00 AM - 6:00 AM where the average wait time is 7 Minutes.
Afternoons: 2:00 PM - 4:00 PM where the average wait time is 6 Minutes.
The Best Times To Fly:
Mornings: 9:00 AM - 11:00 AM where the average wait time is 4 Minutes.
Evenings: 5:00 PM or later is where wait times are below 5 Minutes.
The overall average wait time is 4 Minutes, significantly shorter than the US and slightly shorter than Europe. Compared to March, average CATSA wait times increased by +3.3%.
Conclusion
Wait times in April went up +4.4% when compared to March. This is likely driven by increased passenger volumes as we head into the summer travel season.
Another interesting trend is that we are seeing higher wait times consistently throughout the day. Rather than the morning and late afternoon/evening peak that we saw in March.
Compare the 3 regions combined for March and April:
March
April
There is far less of a wait time drop-off in the afternoon, airport security wait times stay consistently high. This could be down to an increase in holiday travellers, as they are not under the same time constraints as commuter travellers.
This means that you are more likely to encounter long queues at security even if you travel in the early afternoon. The only safe time to travel is 6:00 PM or later as wait times drop-off for all 3 regions.
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