'Airport theory' is the worst TikTok trend yet

For me, even the thought of running late for a flight is absolutely blood-curdling. The prospect of sweating it out in the back of a cab, with red traffic lights and zebra crossings conspiring against me as the clock ticks down, seems like torture. I’d rather miss a bin collection day.

Thanks to TikTok, people are starting to arrive late for flights deliberately. The ‘airport theory’ trend sees passengers show up to the airport just 15 or 20 minutes before departure time to see if they still get to board, making a mockery of the advice to arrive two hours before a short-haul flight and three hours before longer ones.

Travel and social media have always been intertwined

Sometimes this works: an influencer managed to whizz through security in seven and a half minutes and make his flight, but other times it doesn’t, like when another TikToker missed her American Airlines departure. It’s less about making the flight and more about chasing online clout: ‘airport theory’ videos have been watched over 400 million times on TikTok and even the woman who missed her flight got 20.6