Airport Arrival Time Before Flight

I would check when the desks open at the airport. No point in being there before the employees. My husband did that to me once, for small airport- we arrived before the staff. (Grrrrr.....emoji).

Only you know which you prefer.

I'm not a morning person so I would opt for the afternoon flight and a layover.

Those early morning starts from Eastern Europe to the US make for a hellishly long day. First trip to Budapest I did it, second time I made my way to London for a few days before continuing home.

For smaller airports I aim for 1.5 hours prior and no more than 2 hours but others insist on 3 hours even if the check in desks are not open. Ultimately, you have to do what you are comfortable with

If you are not too far from the airport in Philadelphia, maybe just go over there and
ask the folks at the BA desk if they know the answer.

A quick look says that the ~7am flight is the first BA flight of the day, so the question is
a valid one. The Budapest airport website says arrive 2 hours ahead, so that might help
a little.

If you don't want to do the overnight and don't want to get up early, you might be able to
take the next flight to LHR, take a flight to JFK (there are flights at 5, 6, and 7pm London
time), and catch a late evening connection to Philadelphia. The advantage to that is that
you'll fall asleep on US time.

Not knowing your date of travel, it appears the BUD-LHR schedule is different every day,
so you'd have to see what works best.

Get to the airport 1.5 to 2 hours prior to the flight time. Budapest is a fairly easy airport.

The counters usually, not always, open 2 hours prior. Depends on the airline. I take early flights often, if it were me, I would have the taxi pick me up for the trip to the airport 5:00 am. That is 40 minutes to the airport (from the Opera House) so you will be there at 5:40; and thats 1:40 preflight (did I do my math correctly? Check me). I would use CityTaxi and book it with their app the night before. Then I will bet you that they show up 10 minutes early; meaning you are even earlier to the airport than the math. Of course if you are the type that worries, cant blame you for that in a new city, then start at 4:45.

Dont know which airline you flying so dont know which terminal you ticket counter is in, but while they call it two terminals its really two ticket counter rooms and one big departure hall shared by both. BUT, if you ticket counter is in 2A and if after checking in you find that the security line is not open, look to the left and you will see a sign to another security line at the end of a very long, very narrow hall. Thats the hall to terminal 2B. That security always opens early (so far). Both security lines dump into the same departure hall so it really doesnt matter which you use. Your flight I will bet money is out of 2B because thats were the non-Schengen flights leave from.

O'Learys generally opens by 5am, has pretty decent breakfast. Its located in the departures hall, upper level at the 2B end of the departures hall. They have gate / flight screens so you can keep an eye on things. Passport control will take you about 5 minutes if that long. The walk to the gate 5 minutes if that long.

We had an even earlier morning flight out of Budapest last December and we thought we'd be fine getting there 2.5 hours early since the desks weren't open yet.

We were wrong! When we got there, the bag drop wasn't working and a large line had already formed at the check-in counters. It seemed like a river cruise group had arrived just before us. By the time we got out of the bag drop line and through the regular check-in desk, learned they had moved us to an even earlier flight to Frankfurt instead of Munich, went through security and got to the gate, they were boarding.

This is to say that while our experience is not necessarily the norm, things happen, and if I wasn't a morning person and able to get there the full 3 hours ahead, I'd be opting for the other flight.

PQ

It can happen. Everyone's threshold on these things is different. Its all okay. All I can add is in more than 50 departures from BUD I never had a problem. But now that I have said that I expect the next departure to be a nightmare.

Amy, I have the same issue in that my flight in Budapest back to Minneapolis (layover in Amsterdam) in early October leaves at 6:20 am. I'm a morning person so the time doesn't bother me (well, too much), but I did decide to get a hotel near the airport for the last night. I've booked a room at the Ibis Styles Budapest Airport hotel.

At least I don't have to get up an hour earlier in order to get to the airport. FWIW, I plan on getting to the airport 2 hours ahead of time. I know there will not be any gates open till then.

And Mr. E, thanks for the tip about O'Leary's! Good to know. :-)

Speaking of O'Leary's, I was not impressed upon heading home from my trip to Budapest in January. I arrived at the airport with plenty of time to kill, went to O'Leary's which had plenty of empty tables and seats at the bar. Yet the host insisted the place was full and wouldn't let me in saying I would need to be on a waiting list for a seat??? I just went to the Leroy Bistro instead.

Greg, that's strange. I wonder why someone would do that? Hopefully that person isn't there when I depart. :-)

For those of you changing in Schengen and an early flight, note above the other security line. Each trip i walk past dozens waiting for tge 2A security line to open then head to the 2B line and 5 minutes later I am at O'lerrys having breakfast.

The largest advantage of the first flight out may be how many other flights will follow if there is a problem. I dont like the early flights either, but I do them. Just want to move on. I live.

Well, I have moved into the camp of disliking waking up in the middle of the night to head to the airport, although I have done it easily a number in Budapest as Mr. Ë has described. I now, if possible, leave later in the day so 1) I sleep better at night not concerned I will oversleep and miss my flight; 2) enjoy a last lunch in Budapest; 3) enjoy an overnight along the way (for me it usually ends up being Helsinki, which I like - but could be London); and 4) end up at home not so worn out because I had 2 good nights of sleep.

But I have the flexibility of time, so I don’t have to skip a day of sightseeing in order to do this.

To avoid a fairly early flight [7:30] from Budapest to Munich on Lufthansa, I extended the trip a few days by going to Vienna - I was then able to get on a more reasonable 9:30 flight, plus a relatively short trip to the Vienna airport on the S7 train.

Thanks everyone. Lots of great insight.

Given that the counters don’t open until 2 hours before departure (I missed that info on the airport website, thanks) and Mr. E’s wealth of experience, it sounds like arriving 2 hours before departure would typically work.

I also hadn’t thought of staying at an airport hotel the night before. There is an opera performance on the last night I was thinking of attending and would prefer to stay in the city afterwards, but if I skip the opera then it’s definitely something I’d consider.

This trip wouldn’t be until April 2026 so I have time to mull things over and make a decision. And with the way things are, who knows what the actual flight times will be this far in advance.

If you stay at the Ibis Hotel near the airport, the 40-minute taxi turns into a 5 minute walk. So, is Opera or 30 minutes sleep? Opera for me. Or even one more evening trip to the river for the lights.

And while I said it was a 40 minute taxi ride to the airport, at that time of the morning it's probably going to be 30 minutes from the Opera House (just a good central landmark).

AND to be clear, I am not in charge of when the ticket counters open. My "experience" has been that they open 2 hours prior. But that's no guarantee that they won't open earlier. For the longest time, I would leave for the airport 3 hours prior to my 6:30 flight home to the US. I had a traveling companion who demanded it. We always stood in line for 30 minutes waiting for the counter to open. I have a new traveling companion now, and we leave 2 hours prior to flight time. But to be honest, I have only flown out of Budapest maybe 8 times in the last 3 years (but almost a different airline each time).

But now that I have said all of these things, 1) tge counters will open 4 hours prior, and 2) there will be great chaos. Blame TexasTravelMom.