Just a head's up to anyone taking the early flight out of LAX on Delta. Delta advised us to be at the airport 2 hours before our 6:10 am flight to JFK and then on to Venice, but didn't tell us they don't OPEN until 4:00 a.m. Out of an abundance of caution we arrived 2 1/2 hours early (3:30 am) and lined up with about 100 other passengers to check in.
There was no curbside check in and they do not open the check-in counter until 4:00 a.m. Agents milling about shouted to everybody that did not have pre-printed boarding passes to get out of line, go over to the kiosks and print their boarding passes and then get back in line. What they didn't tell us was that the kiosks ALSO do not open until 4:00 a.m. (WTF?) so there were a lot of very angry travelers who came early but could not print their boarding passes. Chaos ensued, with people pulling their luggage out of line and over to the kiosks, trying in vain to print their boarding passes as instructed, and several passengers getting very angry over the confusion.
I held our place in line, wishing we had remembered to print our boarding passes the night before, while my husband stood in line at the kiosks for nearly 1/2 an hour waiting for the kiosks' 4:00 a.m. wake up call. The Delta employees kept yelling at anyone in line without a boarding pass to get out of line, and I witnessed one classic Italian hissy fit.
A few simple signs, i.e., "we open at 4:00" "print boarding pass before getting into check-in line" "kiosks wake up at 4:00" could have avoided a lot of confusion and frustration.
Once we got through security, none of the restaurants or shops in the gate area were open until well after 5:00 a.m. When we took this same flight 4 years ago, the check in counter, restaurants and stores were all open. Live and learn.