We will be flying from Bilbao to Barcelona on Thursday, May 17. Our Iberia flight leaves at 2:15PM. Do we need to be at the airport two hours early, as we do in many major airports? Or is the Bilbao airport one where you can get by with less check-in time?

I have flown from Bilbao into Madrid and one hour was enough.

One hour is fine as long as you do not have any bags to check in, you have a boarding pass in hand and everyone in the world isn't trying to pass through security at the same time.

Iberia used to close the gates at 20 minutes to departure, but have moved the cutoff time up to 30 minutes at a number airports. We always allow at least 90 minutes in Bilbao. 60 minutes seems to work fine in Barcelona.

Thanks for the insight on flying out of Bilbao. I think I'll aim to get to the airport 90 minutes ahead of flight time, but not panic if I fall a bit short of that lead time.

there is an excellent rfrequent inexpensive bus srvice to and from the airport. one stop is right at the guggeheim, and the others are more central, one in a big plaza several blocks away. Sorry i don´t have the name handy.

i believe it cost 1-2 euro.

Thanks for the tip on the bus,lincasanova. We'll be at the Guggenheim right up to departure time, so we'll plan to take the bus.

I can't remember if it was Ryanair we flew, but the airport we used out of Bilbao was actually quite far out of town. So just a warning: I think they have more than one airport and one of them takes some time to reach.

I didn't know there was more than one airport at Bilbao??!! The main one is very close to the city.

The Bilbao airport is only 15 minutes from the center of the city since they opened the tunnel last year. cshellen is probably referring to the airport in Santander, which is at least an hour away.