The Institute of Medicine released two seminal reports in 1999 and 2001.The first report, To Err is Human: Building a Safer Health System released in 1999 received enormous publicity and focused attention on the issues of medical error and patient safety.
The general rule of thumb is that one is supposed to arrive. 1  2 hours early for a domestic flight and. 2  3 for an international flight.
The airlines have a cut-off time of 30 minutes prior to flight time in order to check in (we almost missd it once). To be safe, for domestic flights, we arrive at the airport between 1 hour to 1.5 hours prior flight time, which gives enough time to check in, and get through security lines. For an international flight, I would arrive 2 hours before flight time.