For me, even the thought of running late for a flight is absolutely blood-curdling. The prospect of sweating it out in the back of a cab, with red traffic lights and zebra crossings conspiring against me as the clock ticks down, seems like torture. I’d rather miss a bin collection day.
Thanks to TikTok, people are starting to arrive late for flights deliberately. The ‘airport theory’ trend sees passengers show up to the airport just 15 or 20 minutes before departure time to see if they still get to board, making a mockery of the advice to arrive two hours before a short-haul flight and three hours before longer ones.
Travel and social media have always been intertwined
Sometimes this works: an influencer managed to whizz through security in seven and a half minutes and make his flight, but other times it doesn’t, like when another TikToker missed her American Airlines departure. It’s less about making the flight and more about chasing online clout: ‘airport theory’ videos have been watched over 400 million times on TikTok and even the woman who missed her flight got 20.6 million views on her video.
Some people deliberately cut it fine in life just because that’s how they like to roll. They’d rather gamble on missing a flight than have to wait around in a stressful departure lounge that’s been designed to over-stimulate people and make them spend money.
I’m not like those people. I arrive ridiculously early for stuff. For a flight, I’ll aim to get to the airport a good hour before the latest time you can arrive. For a 3 p.m. football match, I want to breeze into my seat by 2:15 p.m. and if I’m going to a comedy or music gig I like to be in the area, if not the venue itself, a good 30 minutes before show time.
For trains, I might live a bit more on the edge, sometimes not arriving until a reckless 15 minutes before departure time, but generally I’m one of life’s early birds. I’ll never miss a flight or the start of a show or a match, and I can travel to airports, stadiums or theatres relaxed, rather than in that ‘fight or flight’ mode that leaving it late brings.
Look, sitting around in an uncomfortable airport chair, forced to listen to tedious PA announcements and the screams of bored children isn’t my idea of fun either. But it’s a lot less of a drag than hyperventilating in the queue for security, not knowing if I’ll make my flight or not.
Anyway, airports are what you make of them, and I love the people watching opportunities they offer. There’s often famous people knocking about and it’s funny seeing people take selfie after selfie with their breakfast time pints, insisting on getting the perfect angle that will prove that yes, they’re having an absolutely amazing time.
From the strutting business traveller to the quiet hand-holding old lovers and the parents that are despairing just an hour into the family break, everyone you see has a different story; it’s written into their faces and body language. An airport is a window to the world and all humanity is there. What would I have been doing with that 60 minutes at home that was so interesting?
Travel and social media have always been intertwined. In the early days, we’d do an ‘airport check in’ post on Facebook to brag to our friends and colleagues about our impending holiday, but now it’s all got so much bigger.
There’s ‘rawdogging’ (when you fly without in-flight entertainment or distractions), ‘check in chicken’ (when you wait until check-in is almost closed to book a seat under the dubious theory that you’re more likely to get a seat with extra legroom that way), and now there’s ‘airport theory’. It seems like a load of willy waving to me. Put it away, lads.
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