No. 03: Through BNA in twenty minutes

Curb to gate. Most of it happens before you leave the house, and one thing on the list does the heavy lifting.

Twenty minutes, curb to gate. That is the number, and it is not a brag. It is a system, and most of it happens before you leave the house.

Pay for the bag the night before

Airlines charge less for a checked bag online than they do at the counter. Same bag, same flight, two different prices, and the only thing separating them is whether you handled it in your kitchen or at the airport. Check in while you are in there.

Pick your lot before you are in the car

Gone more than a couple of days, Economy Lot B just got expanded, and there is a shuttle tracker so you are not standing outside guessing. Valet is only reachable from Exit 216B off I-40. Miss it and you are going all the way around, because there is no recovering from the other direction.

Getting picked up instead? The cell phone lot sits at 1415 Murfreesboro Pike, about three miles out, with screens showing live flight info. BNA is openly asking people to stop circling Terminal Drive. The circling is exactly why it takes everybody twenty minutes to get out of there.

CLEAR is the actual trick

This is the one that makes the number work. Everything else here shaves a minute. CLEAR is the difference between a line you can see the end of and one you cannot. Pair it with PreCheck and your shoes stay on and your laptop stays in the bag.

Be honest with yourself about how often you fly before you sign up. But past a couple of trips a year, it earns its keep in one morning like this one.

Slip-ons anyway

Even with PreCheck, when you are not taking them off. Feet swell on planes, and nobody has ever regretted shoes they could kick off at cruising altitude.

Check for an upgrade the day of, even standing at the gate

This is the one people skip. Upgrade prices fall as the flight fills and the airline decides it would rather have cash than an empty seat up front. Check the app that morning. Check it again at the gate.

And remember first class usually covers your checked bags, so subtract the bag fee you already paid. Mine came out to half the sticker on the way home.

Headphones in before you reach the terminal

Not for music. For the part where you stop absorbing four gate announcements that have nothing to do with you.

Twenty minutes. The system is boring. That is the whole reason it works.

Hank