When we sent mom off to my sister's in AZ we were afraid to just drop her off at the door for fear she would never find her way around and miss her flight
My brother in-law called ahead of time and the airport was very nice about it .. they even got one of those carts to take her where she needed to go and she didn't miss her flight
And she sets of the alarms with her metal hip ..
Don't know what the airports around you are like, but ou can give it a try
We are 3 hours from the airport, and to get there 2 - 4 hours ahead of departure times means getting up really, really early.
The airport entrance is blocked off from parked cars some 300 yards or whatever--and parking sucked before. I can drop him and the luggage off at the sidewalk and then go find someplace to park. Last time, we were fortunate an officer walked by and asked him he he wanted a wheelchair to sit in while waiting for me to return. I couldn't go get a chair because of the signs posted NOT to leave cars as well as the PA system blurting out the same message.
It was all the garbage of the left hand not knowing what the right hand was doing while trying to check in and get thru the metal detection area.
Frankly, I am not going to sit in an airport for 4 hours twiddling my thumbs! You can't knit or crochet, you can't clean your fingernails, you can only read PC materials, and if you act too interested in whats going on, you're suspected of something! LOL.....besides, you don't know from one jerk to the next whether you can actually escort the person to the gate area--and the first time someone tries to 'feel me up and down', I'd be arrested for providing the idiot with a knuckle sandwich!
I'll have to do all the calling and crap for Dad, and then explain it or write it out so he can understand it and then he can decide if he wants to do it on his own. I can get him there and in the building to the first checkin and to the metal security check area, but from there on, he'd be at the mercy of the airlines, who have done a good job of having someone push the wheelchair through the gate area to board the plane, help with plane changes at SLC or Denver, etc.