Method
The Twenty Minutes After You Arrive
Most people budget for the drive and nothing after it. The twenty minutes between the gate and the van is where flights get missed, and almost all of it is predictable.
Where the time goes
| Step | Usually takes | What makes it longer |
|---|---|---|
| Gate and ticket | Under a minute | A machine that will not read, with nobody in the booth |
| Finding a row | One to four minutes | An unstaffed lot at a busy hour with no direction |
| Parking and unloading | Two to five minutes | A roof box, a car seat, or two vehicles arriving together |
| Walking to the shelter | One to three minutes | The far end of a large lot, in weather |
| Waiting for the van | Zero to the full interval | The interval, and only the interval |
| The ride | Whatever the miles take | Traffic, and the number of stops the van makes first |
The one that varies most is the last two, and both were askable about before you left home.
The number people get wrong
The wait. It is not the average interval, it is anywhere from nothing to the whole interval, and you cannot know which until you are standing there.
So budget the full interval, not half of it. A twenty-five minute service means twenty-five minutes of budget, and the mornings when a van is already waiting are a bonus rather than a plan.
Two vehicles arriving together
Common, awkward, and worth a sentence to the desk in advance.
Two cars means two tickets, two spaces that are rarely adjacent, and a van that may not seat everybody plus luggage in one run. Say so when you reserve and the operator can usually arrange it. Say so at the gate and they usually cannot.
The stops before yours
An off airport van serving one lot goes to the terminal. A van serving three lots stops at all three.
That is the single most common reason a ride takes twice what somebody expected, and it is a fair question to ask: does the van serve this lot only, or a route? Neither answer is bad. One of them adds ten minutes.
What to do with all this
Add it up honestly once, for your own lot and your own hour, and then use the same number every time.
Most people who have parked off airport twice have a number in their head. It is usually right and it is usually theirs rather than the operator's, which is the correct way round.