Really simple question, how long does it take to reach Manila airport by chartered car from Angeles, and how long should I allow myself once I arrive till I get to my gate. Thanks.

It depends on day of week, and time of day?
Obviously, Monday thru Friday are much busier than the weekend.
Manila traffic will be crazy 8am thru 1pm-ish.
And from 3pm thru 9pm-ish.

It could take 2 to 3 hours during those peak hours?

Airport check-in? If you got elite airline status, then clearing mig and x-ray all depends on peak departure times? Morning flights can be a breeze, 5 to 10 minutes.
Night flights are the peak departure times for the majority of the wide body flights. Good thing there is a separate mig line for the "overseas contract workers" and tourists. But you still got the same x-ray queue for all, with separate men and women lanes. I would say give your self minimum 30 minutes.
Phewgood luck sf4dfish

Tuesday this week it took me FOUR fucking hours AC to MNL Terminal 2 by car. Not bullshit or exaggerating one single minute. That's about the worst I've seen. I now leave a minimum of 5 1/2 hours before departure so I barely made it. After Tuesday's traffic debacle, I may bump that up to 6 in the future. Manila traffic is a total crapshoot and is trending worse every trip. It's really bad lately. Remember it's the Philippines so you can't 100% count on your driver picking you up exactly on time either. Missing a flight is a big deal. I'd give plenty of time, you may get there way early but it can just as easily go the other way. It's easier if you have lounge access so you don't go out of your mind with boredom if the traffic demons bless you and you do arrive way early. Also the Android/IOS phone app "Waze" does moderately accurate real time prediction of Manila traffic conditions and travel times so you can run your time and route through it several days in advance to get an idea of latest trends.

Getting through the airport has actually been pretty reasonable for me lately but allot of airlines close check-in 45 minutes or an hour before departure so that is your real time deadline at the airport. If you manage to get checked-in you should be fine making it to the gate on time. Also, if your airline has online-checkin use it. You STILL have to go to the check-in counter by the deadline for a document check BUT there is usually a special line for those who checked in online and it is usually much shorter than the 'regular' check-in line, if you dont have any kind of elite access or business class ticket.

Thanks guys my flight leaves about noon on a thursday so I guess I will pull out about 6

I just rechecked up one my Tuesday ride. Google, being the terrifyingly omnipotent overlord that it is, tracked my phone like a tagged animal on that run to the airport. Reviewing my location history, according the the all-knowing, all-seeing, Google, I pulled out of my hotel in Angeles at exactly 3:45PM (based on a 3:30PM requested pickup) and arrived at Terminal 2 departures at 7:33PM. That is about the worst I have encountered and I would ordinarily figure on 3 hours travel time being more in the ballpark even with 'some' traffic but I was damned glad I had given myself an adequate buffer.

I'd say 6:00AM for a Noon departure is entirely reasonable. You will 'probably' pull into the airport around 9:00AM. But then again.... you might not. Manila traffic defies prediction. Other than it will be 'bad' on a weekday morning.

Did your driver take EDSA or Rojas? I almost always go EDSA, and, you're right, 3 hours is the new normal.

Tuesday the driver did go down EDSA and as far as I can tell that did make the most sense that night, but most often lately they have been cutting through Manila on smaller streets to the north end of Roxas, specifically to avoid EDSA. Tuesday the traffic on EDSA was 'bad' but not much worse than usual, until we had made it all the way to Makati and then it went all to hell from there. It was like 2 1/2 hours Angeles City to Makati and then another 1 1/2 hours just to make it the last 4 miles from Makati to Terminal 2. The Aurora flyover where they would normally turn off of EDSA towards the airport was 100% blocked solid, dead stop, not moving at all even slightly so he stayed on EDSA all the way down to Roxas which was not much better but was at least moving 'slightly'. It was fucked up. Manila traffic really sucks bad lately.

I just went thru this. But my flight was the 0845 departure.

Driver picked me up at AC hotel at 0400 (he was actually a bit early!), got to Terminal 3 at 0530. This was on a friday morning....my guess is that is as good as it gets, we were never stuck in traffic.

At the time getting thru the line at the counter about 30 minutes.


I did a trip to Mindanao in between. Left AC around 0830 with Flythebus (departure should have been at 0800 do not get me started). Predictably we hit traffic and we got to Swagman Hotel at about 1105. Immediately grabbed a taxi and it took about 40 minutes to get to Terminal 3. Traffic pretty crappy at places. So lets call it 3.5 hours to a little cushion.

I hate Manila....

I hate Manila traffic too, but I also luv Manila girls

So to ensure my making my flight out of Manila stress free, I splurge and spend my last night at the Marriott Manila hotel, Resorts World in Pasay. They have a free shuttle every 30 minutes to both terminal 1 & 3.
Having minimum Marriott Gold status also persuades me to spend a night there

I took the bus, but DAU-Cubao took about 90 minutes on a Sunday night several weeks back.

Cubao to Pasay took a good 1:45, and Pasay to terminal 1 took 45 more minutes due to construction near the airport (that may eventually alleviate things).

4 hours on a Sunday night --

NO BUENO!

It took me 4 hours on Saturday the 9th leaving AC fortunately I use the 5.5 hour rule too. Ran into everything along the way, heavy storm just outside of Manila, construction near the airport building that skyway, they even had cops directing traffic at a couple really dense spot but no help.

Sancho, I can't believe I missed you and I even made a couple passes on Raymond street.

Traffic is just one of the reasons not to leave AC or Subic for MNL. You're worn our before you even get on the plane. Much better for me to spend a night in Manila when arriving and departing. Typically I arrive in MNL late in the evening and getting a good night's sleep really helps dissipate the usual 2 or 3 days of jet lag. Most of it is gone when I wake the next morning. Also, if you feel you've deprived yourself of a night on the town don't kid yourself, there are plenty of gals available just about anywhere in Metro Manila.

I flew into Manila once, and never again. I pay the premium to fly Asiana into AC. I arrive in time to exchange some money at Natalia's and pull a girl from a bar before closing time.