Security Lines at IAD
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jaorquina
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| Has anyone flown out of IAD recently? How bad are the security lines? Thanks! |
Anonymous
| What's IAD mean? |
Anonymous
| Somewhere near IED and IUD. |
Anonymous
| It's Dulles, people. |
Anonymous
+1 How can people in the DC area not know this? |
Anonymous
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I flew out on Saturday and it was awful. There were plenty of staff on hand, so that wasn't the problem. I'm guessing it's just the beginning of summer travel and it'll be like this for months.
Get there early. |
Anonymous
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It varies enormously. We have never left IAD on a weekend, but even on weekday evenings, which is when we're at the airport most frequently, it's hit or miss. It doesn't even seem to correlate that much with terrorist strikes in the West. Perhaps more with vacation time, as PP said? Anyway, in February after the blizzard we passed through in less than 10 minutes, which is a record for us (family of 4, shoes off, lots of bags). Other times we've been stuck there for more than 40 minutes. |
Anonymous
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I fly out of Dulles a few times a year, and it always takes longer than it should. The screening is bad, but so it the layout, the use of trams, etc. once you get though screening, it can take forever to get to a gate. Mit's not like you get though screening and you can dash to your gate 50 feet away.
OP-- I usually look at the recommended amount of time and multiply it by 1.5 when I fly out of Dulles (i.e., get there 3 hours early, rather than two). But in light of the current screening mess, I'd probably double it. And while we're on the subject, pay attention to the fact that you pay extra $$ as a fee on each ticket to fund TSA. And Congress in it's infinite wisdom decided to divert the ticket fees to pay down the budget deficit, so TSA has been unable to replace the 5000 screeners it has lost over the last 2 years. And since federal hiring, plus background checks, plus training take time, this is going to be a problem for months or years, even if they came up with the funds today. If you fly and you pay a TSA a fee, you should be pissed that it isn't being used for TSA. |
Anonymous
| How early should you arrive to Dulles if you've flying within the U.S.? |
Anonymous
| I flew out last Thursday afternoon and it was fine (maybe 10min). Co-worker arrived an hour before me and and took 45min to get through. It's really a crap shoot. Try not to get there during lunch or something when more people will be on break. |
Anonymous
You go through the same security line as anyone else. There's only one... |
Anonymous
| I flew out 3 days ago (Sunday afternoon) and the posted wait times for the east and west security lines were 1 minute and 8 minutes. I went through the precheck line which was about 5 minutes. My DC flew out of IAD last Monday (a week ago Monday) and the regular lines were about 10-15 minutes. |
Anonymous
I usually try to get there about an hour and 15 minutes before the flight. Dulles takes slightly longer than most airports because you have to do the train or people mover to the gates. If you do the train it's a long walk to the terminal. So it seems to add 10-15 minutes to the process. If you are checking luggage I'd get there 90 minutes before. |