What time to be at the airport for a Ryan Air flight?

If the flight departs at 3pm then the gate closes at 2:30pm

The official guidelines are to be at the airport 2 hours before your flight. Its something I stick to and it hasnt let me down.

It usually means I have time to kill at the airport but there have also been times when I was still cutting it fine. I have seen the queue going through security zig-zagging across the terminal building, and it taking 90 minutes to get through it.

My last flight was a few weeks ago and the walk from getting through security to the gate(I think it was gate 24) was about 15 minutes.

Get off what at Drumcondra? Train?

Getting to the airport from Drumcondra could take an hour, depending on the bus schedule, traffic and the bus route.

The walk from security to a Ryanair gate is a minimum of 15 mins (more if it's one of the distant gates), as Kat said the gate closes 30 mins before.

Getting through security could take 5 mins, could take 15 or 20 mins.

I would arrive at the airport about 90 mins before a Ryanair flight. Longer if you have to drop a bag.

Ryanair are usually incredibly strict.

Definitely aim to be in the airport building around 90 mins before departure time at least. As others have said, there is a very long walk between the security gates and the actual Ryanair departure terminals…..a good 15 mins at least. I took a Ryanair flight out of there recently and had nearly forgotten how long the walk was.

You could take a taxi from Drumcondra to the airport? FreeNow suggest that it would cost about €15.

Trying to cut door-to-boarding-gate times to the bone is a fool's game, in which there is only ever one loser - you, because the flight will go without you.

There are far too many variables to be able to say "X" time is just enough. All your forms of transport to get to the airport, the security queue, the length of walk to the gate, and anything else that might happen along the way to delay you.

Re your backpack - I'd have said that will be fine, but I recently was in a Ryanair boarding queue (abroad) and the man ahead of me was pulled up on his wheelie suitcase, which was the tiniest one I've ever seen, but it was still too big for the cage (why he was singled out for measurement I have no idea, everyone was boarding normally until then) - the whole queue got held up while they had the argument, out came his credit card, and he had to pay whatever extra they wanted.

Leave yourself a decent cushion of time and save yourself the stress.

Better an hour early than a minute late.

Not sure I understand you saying ‘I don’t want to be hanging about the airport for too long’

Who cares how long you’re waiting there. On a travel day I doubt you’d be doing too much exciting at home anyway! If you don’t want to fork out extortionate airport prices then being a packed lunch with you and eat there. The timings work out well in that sense.

Be at the airport 2 hours before flight departure.

Can you run fast?

You would be incredibly unlucky if it took an hour from Drumcondra to the airport.There is a buslane most of the way.Traffic light junctions might cause a delay.But an hour I doubt it.Midday to 3.00pm not exactly the rush hour

Just yesterday morning I got a distress call from a family member stuck at a service station on the way to the airport with car trouble.

I got to them as quick as I could and gave them my car and eventually got the other one home.

They are very careful people and always have at least an hour in hand.

Yesterday it paid off and they made the flight ✈️ in time.

The 41 is a great option on the way home from the airport at least, as you are already back on home soil and have completed your flights.

Well it happens me every time. Plane is only landing as gate closes, then after the gate is closed you get through the ticket check only to be left standing in a corridor. Every time.

Expressway buses offer an excellent service but you can't rule out an accident or breakdown.

Seriously, what's the big deal over an hour?

Give yourself the cushion in case something happens, bring a book or a podcast and just find somewhere to sit until boarding.

The alternative is cutting your timing to the bone, and risking that if any of the many, many variables goes wrong, you've missed your flight.