Hacker News Reader

Comment by suriya-ganesh | Hacker News Reader

I ended up at LAX 5 am for an 8 am flight. nobody in the whole airport, no TSA nothing until 6 am.

i took a very uncomfortable nap on the floor that day.

I don’t fly enough to carry it with me, but an ultralight tent (nature hike cloud up 2 person) and inflatable sleeping bag under 2kg if you exclude the groundsheet. Not sure if security would try to wake me constantly even airside… probably yes but otherwise would sleep like a baby with my earplugs, noise cancelling headphones and eye mask

Probably: a YouTuber tried something similar[0] and apparently was not accosted.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUHQ_lLD0n0

I find it ridiculous that airports in the US close. I've landed earlier than expected and you need to stare at the ceiling until 5am while other aeroplanes arrive and prepare for a race through customs.

Not only US. A friend’s flight was late and about to land in Munich after the airport closes. So they had to land at a different airport and then take the train to Munich.

Sydney airport also closes overnight because it’s too loud for the surrounding residential areas.

Long Beach does something similar; I did a training flight there and we left right as it was closing, when my wheels left the runway all the lights went off.

I sometimes fly out of a small, local airport that only has one commercial route, from that airport to Philadelphia. That airport closes down overnight and it's perfectly reasonable. (And they open up at 5 AM to start serving passengers boarding the 7 AM flight; again, perfectly reasonable since there are 50 seats on that plane and you get through security in 5 minutes). But a major international airport that has incoming flights all night long? I agree, they should have at least ONE customs location staffed somewhere in the airport, any time an international flight is scheduled to arrive.

P.S. It's not just America. I flew through the Middle East once on my way to eastern Asia. The flight landed at something like 3:30 AM local time, and the security checkpoint didn't open until 4 AM or 5 AM or something like that. There were so many people waiting in line for that checkpoint, it was getting dangerously overcrowded in that hallway, with more and more people arriving down the escalator all the time. Thankfully nobody fainted or fell, but it could have been a bad situation there.

> I sometimes fly out of a small, local airport that only has one commercial route

That one, sure, but I'm referring to a few major hubs where 10-15 aeroplanes arrive before or within the first 15 minutes after they open

Reply on news.ycombinator.com