3 hours?
 

We're flying Transat from Toronto to Paris. Do we really need to be at the airports 3 hours before the flight is scheduled to leave? Or will 2 or 2 1/2 hours be all right? Is Transat reliable? Has anybody flown on Transat Air recently?

This is for the airlines forum, not Europe.

I can't speak to the Toronto airport. But yes, when you fly home you'd better be at CDG 3 hours before your flight.

Depends when you are going. The lineups for customs can be brutal, but if leaving on ..say a Wednesay night/morning...less so.

Ever thought about Buffalo?

Thanks, I didn't know there was an airlines forum. I'll repost it there. Flying from Buffalo was a lot more expensive.
Our flight leaves Paris at 2 PM.

Mid-day I'd be there close to 3 hours, but I think earlier is better.

No need to re-post, I don't see how this doesn't "go" in the Europe forum. Does the airlines forum get any substantial traffic?

I've flow to Europe a few times from Buffalo, and it was cheaper than Air Canada. But, I was going off season. I use Kayak, and also Travelocity/Expedia if I want combo deals.

Buffalo is extraordinarily fast to get from car to gate (under 20 minutes sometimes)

I would allow 3 hrs at the Paris end.

I was just over to the Airlines Forum and there were exactly 2 entries so far today, so I would say further, this query doesn't go there unless you'd rather nobody look at it.

I think it's ok to post here, but shouldn't OP been a bit more descriptive in title than "3 Hours?"

Never heard of Transat - so can;t help. But have flown out of CDG many times - and 3 hours is NOT too early. The lines for both check-in and security can be horrendous.

Don't worry about the forum... plenty of us here in the Europe forum know Air Transat.

The answer is yes... A/T themselves will tell you to be there 3 hours ahead. I have flown A/T from Montreal to France 3 times the past few years and once to Greece... once flight was via Nice and twice by CDG. Every flight has been on time and on the way there we've always landed ahead of schedule due to tailwinds.

Departures have also been timely but we were delayed once at CDG when someone checked baggage but did not board the flight himself. We waited 30 minutes while his bags were rooted out of the hold.

There's good news and bad news at the CdG end... they use terminal 3. It's much smaller and less busy than the other 2 so we've never needed to wait more than a few minutes for security when departing. If there's a problem or alert things change which is why the 3 hours ahead is needed. The not so great news is you are left out on the runway when you arrive and board buses to the terminal for immigration and baggage retrieval. It's not so bad though. There's rarely a line for cabs though and you're only a couple hundred meters walk from the RER station.

Rob

Can you check in online? If so you could probably get there a bit later, but you will still have to check your bags, clear security etc.

Personally I prefer hanging around at the airport knowing I am in time, than rushing and panicking. I made that mistake once - having checked in online we thought we'd be fine with 90 minute for a intra Europe flight - but it took us an hour just to check the bags in and get thtough a huge queue for security so that we ended up running to the gate and just making it. Never again!
Airlines close their gates earlier and earlier so they can get the plane away on time and avoid fines.

AirTransat is popular for flights to Canada from the Netherlands, because of their prices. I've never used them but people I know say they are OK, no better or worse than AirCanada.

If the Airline recommends 3 hours, you should follow that recommendation. How long check-in takes depends on how many clerks are on duty. And, how "reliable" the airline has nothing to do with how long it may take you to get through security.

There's no way to know whether 2 or 2-1/2 hours will be sufficient. Do you want to chance missing your flight? How upset would you be if you were told, sorry, the gate was closed five minutes ago?

All seasoned travelers will tell you it's far better to allow plenty of extra time than cut it too close.