Ahhhh, the airport. I know it sounds crazy, but I really do feel at home when I get to the airport for a flight. I see a lot of people get super stressed out when it comes to travel. Here’s my guide to cruise through the terminal smoothly and efficiently.

Get off the train, through TSA, to the lounge, and on to my gate – it’s almost second nature at this point. Save money on lunch by getting food at the lounge – double win! When you get better at The Game, all these pieces naturally fall in line.

Let me get one important caveat out of the way – if you’re travelling with young kids, it’s nearly IMPOSSIBLE for it all to go so smoothly. Just know I have a lot of respect for you and what you have to go through. Oh, and don’t worry if your kid throws the biggest tantrum on the plane! You’re trying your best and you can only control so much. Just please don’t be those parents who let their kids watch movies on their iPad without headphones and at high volume.

Alright, now for the rest of you:

Know thy airport

I wrote about having backup plans and alternate airports in mind. But now that you’ve narrowed it down to just one airport and one flight, you should make an effort by doing some research ahead of time. You really should know thy airport (not plural).

Take for example my old home airport BOS. Each terminal is connected airside except Terminal A (Delta operates a shuttle bus between Terminals A and E, but it’s not always running). Terminal B has two separate security checkpoints – one for the West and one for the East half.

So pro tip: If you ever fly out of Terminal B, you have options! Perhaps you’re running late for your flight and there’s a veeeery long security line. I just flew Southwest out of Boston yesterday and it was the perfect storm of flights with United, Southwest, Spirit, and Alaska all having about 10 flights leaving within 15 minutes of each other. I’d say there were maybe 200 people in that security line. I brought my dad across the street to where American normally flies out of. Lo and behold, we were one of maybe 5 people in line. We just had to walk the extra 5 minutes back to the other side to catch our flight.

BOS also has a unique lounge setup too. I know that JetBlue always flies out of Terminal C. There is a Priority Pass lounge there, but it’s…not the most impressive. It gets the job done, but it’s nothing really to write home about.

Terminal B has the all new Chase Sapphire Lounge, which is light years ahead of the competition in terms of lounges. It’s shiny, clean, has good drinks, and the food is ~fantastic~

Now for mere mortals, the sound of walking all the way from Terminal B to Terminal C sounds like the biggest hassle ever. But to a self-proclaimed expert like yours truly, it’s absolutely no big deal. The Sapphire Lounge is located in the new connector between B and C. The nearest C gate with JetBlue is a literal 2-minute walk away. It’s actually a shorter walk to go from the other security line (Southwest side) to the lounge than it is to walk from the lounge to Terminal C! How quirky is that?!

Get Global Entry (or just PreCheck)

I can’t stress this enough. Every person on this planet should have TSA PreCheck. Now I still have some thoughts on how in this country we have to pay money not to be treated like a terrorist, but I’ll set that debate aside for now 🙂

There is absolutely no reason why you shouldn’t get it. It literally saves you so much time at the airport! Maybe the lines are a little longer, but you get through so much quicker with no need to remove your shoes, jackets, laptops, liquids, etc.

Before you go running off paying for PreCheck saying “Donald told me to”, I will say you also have absolutely no reason to pay out of pocket for TSA PreCheck. A large number of premium travel credit cards give you a Trusted Traveler Program (TTP) fee credit every 4 years.

Notice how I didn’t specify TSA PreCheck, but rather “TTP Credit”. Once you get Global Entry, Nexus, or Sentri, you get TSA PreCheck for free along with it. It’s all looped under your TTP PassID, also called a Trusted Traveler Number.

Go get Global Entry now. It’s free with your credit card, saves you time at the airport, and you don’t have to stand barefoot on the gross airport floor.

Study the Patterns

When I say pattern, I’m talking about the traffic patterns at the airports and in the air. For example, I know that very few people travel on Tuesdays, so it will normally be less crowded. I know that in LAS, 6AM sees the absolute highest volume of people. At 12AM, all the afternoon flights from the West Coast arrive in BOS, so the arrivals curb is bumper-to-bumper.

LAX has all the terminals around one single loop road – terrible for traffic flow. So I know that by walking just a couple curbs down, my friend can pick me up and get out about 15 minutes quicker. It allows them to take Center Way instead of following the loop all the way around.

The MBTA in BOS is notoriously unpredictable. The Silver Line from the airport is supposed to run approximately every 10 minutes, but sometimes I check the tracker and it says the next bus is 25 minutes away. Meanwhile, there’s about 45 people waiting at the curb, which means this next bus is going to be very very very crowded. So instead, I’ll opt for the Blue Line bus and train, which costs $2.40 more, but hey it saves time and is much more comfortable.

Sometimes you get off a plane and see that an Uber wants a whopping $70 or even $100 just to go a few miles. What a scam! Well people tend to forget that traditional taxis are indeed still a thing. Are you going to get the same level of convenience or accountability? Probably not. But in my opinion it’s worth saving the $50 or so and hop in the cab.

Flip the Cycle

Here’s something that very few people do. Because of the reasons I state above in “Study the Patterns”, flights tend to leave and arrive around the same time. Everyone’s trying to fly out at 6AM and arriving at midnight. What I normally do is ask my ride (or passengers) to meet me at the opposite level. So basically drop off at arrivals and pick up at departures. You might get some weird looks from airport security, but as long as you don’t park for too long they won’t say anything. One security guy at LAS actually recognizes me now and every time greets me with “oh look, the flipper’s home!”

I drove to pick up friends at MCO once and the line of cars at arrivals was at least 100 deep. Traffic snaked for miles and I waited 30 minutes just to get to the terminal area. But once I got close enough, I peeled off and went to the departures curb (where mind you, we shared the road with ONE other car), picked them up, and we were on our way.

This also works if you’re checking a bag! Instead of walking straight out, just go to the departures level. Or vice versa if you’re flying out. There is no rule preventing you from using the elevator.

Pack Efficiently

I’ll admit, this gets me sometimes too. Something goes wrong with my ticket and the delay forces me to check my carryon bag. Now I have to rummage through my suitcase, take out my laptop, and repack my backpack (which I still think is dumb by the way, American doesn’t force you to do this so long as the laptop is fully off).

Pack your suitcase with anything you might possibly need to take out in a way that’s easily accessible. So like for my example above, put your laptop at the very top where you can get to it with your eyes closed. Layer your clothes and don’t overuse the zipper by putting stuff you may need in it. There’s literally no way to fully open up your suitcase while in the overhead bin!

And if you have multiple electronics, do your best to offset them so it’s easier for the XRay screener to look at its contents. If you have 2 or 3 laptops, iPads, or other dense electronics layered on top of each other, TSA Agents can’t see anything above or below that clearly. Most of the time, that forces you into secondary screening, which eats up valuable lounge time.

And please, for the love of all things, make sure you don’t pack your wires and cords in a way that “made it look like a live snake on X-Ray”. Who would ever to that? Not me…erm…

Yeah definitely wasn’t me…