early flite from Marco Polo Airport, Venice (VCE)

[mapleleaves]

I've flown out of VCE a few times and it's always chaotic, but my flights were always in the afternoon so it was easy to arrive 3 hrs prior to flight.

This time my flight is at 6:30am!   I was thinking of arriving around 5am since nothing much is open. But then I thought .... if nothing is open, the queues might be even longer.  

So has anyone had an early flight out of VCE lately?  i'd  appreciate hearing your experience.  Thx

 

p.s.  I should add that the flight is going to Madrid, and no luggage to check

Edited August 7, 2022 by mapleleaves

[curmudgeon98]

It has been a few years, but I doubt much has changed.  No point in getting there too early as you note, because nothing will be open.  The one special case point I would keep in mind is that you don't want to be dependent on a water taxi or other boat to get to the airport for an early flight, as they can be shut down if the morning is foggy on the lagoon.

[CruiserBruce]

This is discussed frequently on the Italy board. VCE is a cluster.

[pschweig]

On July 17, we flew from Marco Polo Airport to Frankfurt on a Lufthansa flight which left at 6:30 am. We arrived at 4:45 am to very long check-in and security lines. Warning if you are flying business - no one arrived at the priority business entrance for security until 5 am. They did not have enough airport staff. We never expected the airport to be so crowded on a Sunday morning before 5 am. 

[mapleleaves]

45 minutes ago, CruiserBruce said:

This is discussed frequently on the Italy board. VCE is a cluster.

Yes, I did a search, but there was nothing recent that addressed a very early departure at VCE.

Just the usual complaints.

[mapleleaves]

32 minutes ago, pschweig said:

On July 17, we flew from Marco Polo Airport to Frankfurt on a Lufthansa flight which left at 6:30 am. We arrived at 4:45 am to very long check-in and security lines. Warning if you are flying business - no one arrived at the priority business entrance for security until 5 am. They did not have enough airport staff. We never expected the airport to be so crowded on a Sunday morning before 5 am. 

Thanks so much! This is exactly the information I was looking for. 

Not priority status.  I gather you made the flight.  Did you have to run to your gate or did you have a few minutes to spare?

[pschweig]

45 minutes ago, mapleleaves said:

Thanks so much! This is exactly the information I was looking for. 

Not priority status.  I gather you made the flight.  Did you have to run to your gate or did you have a few minutes to spare?

We made our flight with time to spare. Even though we had to wait for someone to open the priority line, we still made it through quicker than those in all the non-priority lines. The lines checking in at the Lufthansa ticket counter were very long. There was a long line to enter the gates’ area and then there were long lines for security. Please expect crowds and arrive before 5 am. 

[Hlitner]

With an early flight out of VCE I would start saying my prayers a few weeks in advance :).  That airport is certainly among the worst in Europe and we know of know fail safe tricks for a 6:30 flight.  If you arrive at 4am you will likely cool your heals in a queue at a closed counter until well after 5 am.  As you surmise, if you arrive at 5am the counter will likely still be closed but there will be a long queue.   What would I do?  #1.  Not schedule a flight at 6:30am!   #2.  Arrive by 4:30am if I have a 6:30 flight and expect to stand in a queue at a closed counter.

 

Hank

[RD64]

Being of Italian background and having flown through Marco Polo at least thirty times I can honestly say Marco Polo is the Wild West of airports where rules policies change from day to day. I stopped taking those 7AM flights to Amsterdam / Frankfurt / Munich / Paris In 2005 because they were chaos back then when traffic levels were much less. Now I will only fly from there later in the day. Granted there are still the hassles and the crowds, but I am more awake to deal with them.

[petepie]

FYI. If you’re flying Air France, their ticket counter doesn’t open for check in until 2 hrs before the flight. You can do most of the check in online but we still needed to go to the counter to show passports and get boarding passes. May not be the case for EU only travel.