How to read these windows
A departure window is not a driving time. It is the amount of time between the vehicle arriving at your door and you standing inside the terminal, and it contains four things people forget.
- Loading. Two people and four cases from a rowhouse with steps takes longer than you think. Five to ten minutes, every time.
- The road, at its worse rather than its better. Explained on the crossings page. The window is built for the slower of the two tunnels.
- The drop itself. Departures level at a busy hour is a slow crawl on the last two hundred yards.
- Your own margin inside the terminal. That part is yours, and the windows below stop at the curb.
Add your terminal margin to the window and you have your pickup time. If you want the desk to do that arithmetic with you, telephone +1 (443) 612-4708 and say what time your flight leaves.
Departure windows by zone
| Zone | Quiet hours | Weekday peak | Before dawn |
|---|---|---|---|
| Federal Hill, Locust Point, Riverside | 35 to 45 minutes | 50 to 65 minutes | 30 to 40 minutes |
| Canton, Fells Point, Harbor East, Inner Harbor | 40 to 50 minutes | 60 to 80 minutes | 35 to 45 minutes |
| Mount Vernon, Bolton Hill, Station North | 45 to 55 minutes | 65 to 85 minutes | 35 to 45 minutes |
| Highlandtown, Brewers Hill, Greektown, Dundalk | 45 to 55 minutes | 65 to 85 minutes | 35 to 50 minutes |
| Hampden, Remington, Woodberry, Charles Village | 50 to 60 minutes | 70 to 90 minutes | 40 to 55 minutes |
| Columbia, Ellicott City, Elkridge | 45 to 55 minutes | 60 to 80 minutes | 40 to 50 minutes |
| Towson, Lutherville, Timonium | 60 to 75 minutes | 85 to 110 minutes | 50 to 65 minutes |
| Annapolis and the Broadneck side | 60 to 75 minutes | 80 to 105 minutes | 50 to 65 minutes |
Quiet hours means roughly 9:30 am to 3:00 pm and most of the weekend. Weekday peak means 6:30 am to 9:30 am and 3:00 pm to 7:00 pm. Before dawn means a pickup at 5:00 am or earlier, when the road is genuinely empty and the only variable left is you.
What the road looks like when the window is right
The four mornings that break the table
- The Sunday after Thanksgiving. The single heaviest day of the year at the field. Book the ride a week ahead and add half an hour to whatever the table says.
- The first properly icy morning. Not the forecast, the actual first one. Everybody drives slowly, the ramps go first, and the window stretches without warning.
- A summer Friday if you are coming from Annapolis or east of it. The traffic heading for the water is not going to your airport but it is on your road.
- Any morning when your own street is being worked on. You will know and we will not, so tell the desk when you book. It is the single most useful thing a passenger can say.
Arrivals are a different question
Coming home, the clock runs the other way and it is not yours to manage. Give the flight number on the request and the operator watches it. If the aircraft is late the pickup moves with it, and that is not treated as a change.
What does need saying in advance is where you want to be met, because the airport side of this has its own rules. The short answer is that a curbside meet at the arrivals level is the default and it is the fastest, and that a meet at the terminal inside the building takes longer and is worth it when somebody in the party needs it.
A worked example, so this is not abstract
A flight leaves at 8:05 am on a Wednesday. You are in Canton and you would like ninety minutes inside the terminal because you are checking a bag and you dislike rushing.
- Terminal margin: 90 minutes, so you want to be at the curb by 6:35 am.
- Canton on a weekday peak morning: the window is 60 to 80 minutes, so take the 80.
- Pickup time: 5:15 am.
- Loading is already inside that 80, so 5:15 is when the vehicle is at your door and not when you start looking for your shoes.
If that feels early, it is. It is early so that the morning the tunnel is holding you are the person who is bored at the gate rather than the person watching the doors close. Send the request with your flight time and the callback will do this arithmetic out loud with you.