About to miss a flight? Here’s how to get on.

6 steps to follow if you’ve missed your flight

You’ve seen it in movies. People rushing through the airport, bags flying in hand. Thinking to yourself as Kevin in Home Alone 2 chases after his “dad,” ha, that would never be me.

Until it is.

Sometimes things happen. Now with TSA regulations, the average person should get to the airport 1.5–2 hours before a domestic flight and 3 hours before for an international flight. If you find yourself in an instance where you’re going through TSA 5 minutes before departure time, not boarding time, these tips might help you prevent a travel headache.

My story: trying to get to New Orleans from California.

My girlfriends and I were about to go on a girls trip to the south of Louisiana. Between the 6 of us, we went in pairs to make it easier to fly out and stay together.

For our 6:00am flight, we got out of the Uber at 5:46am.

My friend and I had the unfortunate airport horror of our flight to our layover not only being delayed, but being stuck on said plane for an extra 1.5 hours to which we missed the connecting flight. Spending 3 hours on air mattress pads at a nearby coworkers, we were able to book a redeye 6:00 am flight the next morning, err, the same morning.

However, luck was not on our side in Dallas and there was a thunderstorm which led to 2 Ubers being cancelled on us with hardly any time to spare until finally one picked us up. Trudging through the ankle deep waters of the storm outside of the building up until throwing our luggages in the back of the trunk, we were on our way. With the iPhone screen brightly lit up, we read our blaring arrival at “5:46 am.”

There’s absolutely no way at all we’ll make this. I’m thinking. However, we in fact, did. This is what we did to get on our flight after the gate had already closed.

Step 1: If you’re in a pinch and your airport has it, sign-up for CLEAR.

PSA: Since you most likely won’t be rushing to your next flight, you can cancel it immediately after signing up as they have a 14-day free trial policy. This article is not sponsored by CLEAR and quite frankly I did not know what it was until I was sprinting into the airport and got stopped by one of their employees. It’s a biometric ID platform that lets you skip the initial ID check prior to going through TSA security. If that line is LONG, it’s better to spend the 2 minutes signing up for CLEAR and getting through it than waiting in another line.

Step 2: Go immediately to the entrance to plane gate.

If you are lucky, they are calling your name and seeing if you are still around and will let you on. If this is not the case, then start speaking to the travel agents.

Step 3: Ask about stand-by.

If there was passengers waiting on stand-by, at this point then you may be SOL. This means they have taken your spots at this point. If there were not any, then proceed to step 4.

Step 4: Ask if the pilot is on the plane.

Once you are speaking to the travel agents, ask if the pilot is already on the plane. Sometimes, in our case, they could be handling some logistical paperwork and that may be the reason your plane does not take off on time. That may be an annoyance to others, but in your case, you will benefit from it. Ask the pilot if there is still space on the plane as they will know exactly how many passengers they are flying.

**This is how we got on!

Step 5: Plead.

Sometimes you just get lucky. I do believe the pilot heard us, well, crying, and that could have played a factor. Just a reminder there is nothing good in being mean or problematic to the travel agents!

Step 6: Never run late for a flight ever again.

If any of these succeed, just try to avoid any delays in the future. :-)

Other factors:

• Is your bag already checked in on the flight?
  -Higher chance of getting on since you have a bag claim (keep the tag).
• Do you have a child on the flight?
  -Well, first of all, you should be accompanying your child but this could work.
• Is this the only flight of the day and is it early enough in the day?
  -Valid argument, but usually they will just book you next day then. Could work for flights to smaller airports.

Credibility is just experience! If this ever has happened to you, let me know if you ended up getting on or not! Don’t let this be you: