Nobody has ever enjoyed a 6am flight — but the miserable ones and the merely early ones are separated by fifteen minutes of preparation the previous evening. Here's the complete checklist, from sleep maths to the alarm you can actually trust.
Free cancellation up to 24 hours before pickup
Before packing, before anything: book the pickup with the flight number attached. This single act deletes the 4am variables — no app roulette, no first-train gamble, no lift that might bail. Pickup time comes computed from bag-drop backwards; see the when-to-leave arithmetic for what to expect.
Online check-in tonight, boarding passes screenshotted (airports and airline apps love to demand signal at the worst moment). Seat squabbles resolved now cost nothing; at 05:40 they cost boarding position.
Bag by the door, zipped. Outfit laid out — including shoes, the classic 4am casualty. Liquids bagged, laptop accessible, passport IN THE BAG, not “somewhere obvious”. Morning-you is a stranger with poor judgment; leave them nothing to decide.
Count backwards from the pickup, not the flight: a 04:00 car means a 03:15 alarm means bed by 21:15 for six hours. You won't manage it — but aiming at 21:15 and hitting 22:30 beats aiming at “early-ish” and hitting 1am.
Kettle pre-filled, cup out, breakfast that survives being eaten standing. Phone charging by the door with the bag, not the bed — this is both the second alarm and the anti-forgetting device.
Primary alarm across the room; second alarm ten minutes later. The pre-booked driver texting on approach is the third — the knock that turns up is the only alarm with professional consequences for failing. That's rather the point.
First-train truths, honest options and worked timings for each airport.
Step one takes two minutes and it's the step that guards the rest.