The best time to arrive at the airport revealed

IT’S the question we’ve all pondered: when is the ultimate time to arrive at the airport? A mathematician claims to have the answer.

Don’t waste too much time at the airport.

IT’S the question all passengers have pondered at some stage: when is the best time to arrive at the airport?

Turn up too late and you could find yourself in a nightmare scenario where you’ve missed your flight and have to rebook — and you’re often hit with a whopping fee in the process. But arrive too early and you have to endure much longer inside the airport than necessary, leading to many wasted hours for frequent flyers, not to mention the extra stress.

A US mathematician claims to have the answer to this dilemma, and it’s rather surprising.

Professor Jordan Ellenberg, from the University of Wisconsin, says in his new book How Not To Be Wrong — The Hidden Maths Of Everyday Life, that the best time to arrive at the airport is as late as possible.

He says every hour a traveller spends at the airport is a “negative unit”, as they could have been relaxing in the comfort of their own home instead.

According to Prof. Ellenberg the risk of possibly missing your flight compared with the wasted hours you would spend at the airport over your lifetime is worth it.

Of course, it “depends on how you personally feel about the relative merits of missing planes and wasting time,” he told the Sunday Times.

“But if in the course of a lifetime you never miss a flight then you may not have the best strategy.”

His parting words of advice?

“If you’ve never missed a flight, you’re not doing it right.”

But more cautious travellers are bound to be of the opinion, why risk it at all? And those flying out for special occasions may want to think twice about adopting this formula.

Would you risk missing your flight?