About 870 passengers on 25 departures (5 major-carrier flights and 20 island hops) to 11 destinations. The biggest carrier is American.
Thu Oct 22--:--:-- --ASTIsland Time
The schedule · 25 departures
Worst of the day: about 65 min around 11:25 am · High.
Mobile Passport Control (MPC): use the free app to complete your U.S. Customs declaration before you reach the airport — it can get you through CBP inspection faster.
Learn more about MPC at STT →Global Entry takes you through U.S. Customs at a kiosk; PreCheck keeps shoes and laptops where they are at TSA. Both are honoured at Cyril E. King.
Check-in desks open about three hours before departure and the line builds two hours out. Arrive at the time the plan above gives, not earlier: the terminal opens at 6:00am.
Today's worst wait is about 65 minutes, around 11:25am. 25 departures are scheduled. 5 of them clear the main U.S. Customs and TSA checkpoint, carrying about 708 of the day's 868 departing passengers; the rest leave from the commuter and international gates, or on inter-island props that check in at their own counter, and never join this line. The wait is quoted curb to gate, Customs and TSA together. With nobody ahead of you it is about 10 minutes — the counter, the agricultural inspection, bag drop and the scanner — and it only climbs when a flight's passengers arrive, two to three and a half hours before it leaves. Expect a high line 11:00am–12:30pm, peaking near 65 minutes. It stays under 30 minutes 6:00am–11:00am and again 12:30pm–7:00pm. Arrive 2h 30m before a main-checkpoint departure on a normal day, 3 to 3.5 hours when your slot is High or Severe; the airport opens 6:00am. Flights to St. Croix and the inter-island props use separate gates and never see this line.
| Airport | Before you fly | Today |
|---|---|---|
| STT Cyril E. King Airport · St. Thomas | U.S. Customs → TSA · arrive 2h 30m | ~— min now · peak ~65 at 11:25am Moderate · 25 departures |
| STX Henry E. Rohlsen Airport · St. Croix | U.S. Customs → TSA · arrive 2h | Moderate · small terminal, a fraction of STT's volume |
| EIS Terrance B. Lettsome International Airport · Tortola | Immigration → Security · arrive 1h 30m | Typically lighter · regional props only, no mainland nonstops |
About 868 passengers depart STT today on 25 scheduled flights, and about 1,006 land. Roughly 708 of the departing passengers go through the main U.S. Customs and TSA checkpoint on 5 main-checkpoint departures; the rest fly from the commuter and international gates, or on the inter-island props to St. Croix, San Juan and the neighbouring islands, which check in at their own counter. The busiest departure hour is 2pm, when about 343 passengers are booked to leave — and because they reach the terminal two to three and a half hours before that, the line for them is longest around 11:25am, near 65 minutes. By carrier: American ~389, Delta ~170, Cape Air ~160. Across the next seven days, Sunday is the busiest at about 1,374 departing passengers and today the lightest at about 868, roughly 7,784 in all. Every figure is an estimate: each aircraft type's seat count at a typical 85% load factor, from the published schedule, refreshed hourly.
2pm is the biggest hour, ~343 passengers booked to leave. They reach the terminal two to three and a half hours earlier, which is why the line peaks at 11:25am, before the bars do.
Sunday is the busiest departure day of the week ahead at ~1,374 passengers. Tap a day at the top of the page for its wait forecast and flight list.
Worst: ~65 min at 11:25am, floor ~10 min. Under 30 minutes 6:00am–11:00am, or 12:30pm–7:00pm. The bars are the worst case inside each half hour, which is what you hit if you walk in at the wrong minute. The floor is the walk, the counter and the scanner with nobody ahead of you; everything above it is other passengers, and it moves with the departure bank they are here for. Mobile Passport Control and TSA PreCheck each trim part of it; the forecast assumes neither.
1 departure bank: 2:47pm–3:00pm (3 jets). The crowd for each arrives 3 to 3.5 hours ahead, which is why the terminal is fullest two hours before the busiest takeoffs, not during them.
STT airport wait times right now, tonight and tomorrow morning — the live U.S. Customs and TSA forecast for St. Thomas airport, Cyril E. King Airport (STT), is at the top of this page; the half-hour chart, the passenger counts and the day's departures and arrivals are above. Below: the three Virgin Islands airports side by side, then the questions travelers ask most, with the numbers behind them and links to the VIslandGuide pages that finish the trip.
Three airports serve the Virgin Islands — Cyril E. King (STT) on St. Thomas, Henry E. Rohlsen (STX) on St. Croix, and Terrance B. Lettsome (EIS) on Beef Island, Tortola. Each has its own terminal, security process, and route map.
| Airport | Terminal | Nonstop destinations | Typical week (Sun–Sat) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cyril E. King Airport (STT) Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas — you're on this page | Single terminal. 2 TSA lanes. Check-in opens ~3h before departure. | 24 — MIA, CLT, JFK, LGA, PHL, EWR, IAD, BOS, ATL, ORD, MCO, FLL, MSP, DTW, DEN, BWI, MDW, TPA, PIT, SJU, STX, EIS, SBH, SXM | Sun Often busy · Mon Lighter · Tue Lightest · Wed Lighter · Thu Moderate · Fri Often busy · Sat Busiest |
| Henry E. Rohlsen Airport (STX) Christiansted, St. Croix | Single terminal. Small, low-volume airport. Check-in opens ~3h before departure. | 9 — MIA, CLT, JFK, FLL, ATL, SJU, STT, EIS, SXM | Sun Moderate · Mon Lighter · Tue Lightest · Wed Lighter · Thu Moderate · Fri Moderate · Sat Busiest |
| Terrance B. Lettsome International Airport (EIS) Road Town, Tortola | Single terminal, short runway. Mostly regional props. Check-in opens ~2h before departure. | 5 — SJU, STT, SXM, ANU, DOM | Sun Lighter · Mon Lighter · Tue Lightest · Wed Lightest · Thu Lighter · Fri Moderate · Sat Busiest |
The live number is at the top of this page, modeled from today's departure schedule and updated hourly: one wait for the whole line, U.S. Customs and TSA together, curb to gate. With nobody at all ahead of you it is about 10 minutes — the walk in, an empty counter, the agricultural inspection and the body scanner — so the number never reads zero, and on a quiet morning with no jet due for hours that is what it says. It climbs with the departure bank: a light day's two-jet midday crush runs 30 to 45 minutes, and a Saturday in season, when a bank of mainline jets leaves together, reaches 80 minutes or more. The chart above shows every half hour, and the date picker at the top of this page checks any date within 60 days.
Two and a half hours before a mainline departure to the U.S. mainland or San Juan is the standard recommendation; the forecast stretches that to three or three and a half hours when your arrival slot is High or Severe. Flights to St. Croix use the commuter gate with no Customs or TSA screening — one hour is plenty, and bags must be weighed at the counter 30–45 minutes before departure. International departures (Tortola, St. Barths, Sint Maarten) use a separate gate with its own screening lane; about 90 minutes. The terminal opens at 6:00am, so no recommendation ever falls earlier than that.
On a typical day roughly 3,000 to 5,000 passengers depart Cyril E. King Airport and about as many arrive, on 30 to 40 scheduled flights. In high season, December through April, a Saturday can push past 6,000 departing passengers as the mainline jets to Miami, Charlotte, New York, Atlanta and the other East Coast hubs fill up; a Tuesday in September can be under half that. Around 85% of departing passengers go through the main U.S. Customs and TSA checkpoint; the rest fly from the commuter and international gates. The passenger section on this page shows today's estimate by hour and the next seven days side by side, computed from each aircraft's seat count at a typical 85% load factor.
The U.S. Virgin Islands are U.S. territory but sit outside the U.S. customs zone, so every traveler heading to the mainland clears a U.S. Customs and Border Protection agricultural inspection at STT before TSA. That is why the St. Thomas line runs longer than a domestic airport's: it is two checkpoints in one hall. There is no immigration check for U.S. citizens, and no passport is required for U.S. citizens traveling between the USVI and the mainland.
Yes to all three. TSA PreCheck has its own lane at the main checkpoint and Global Entry members are recognized at the Customs inspection. Mobile Passport Control is the free CBP app that lets you file your declaration before you reach the airport and use the MPC lane at inspection — the single biggest time saver at STT, and it needs no enrollment.
Saturday, and Saturday morning above all, from December through April when the season's weekly rentals and charters turn over. Most mainline jets to the East Coast leave between late morning and mid-afternoon, and their passengers arrive three to three and a half hours ahead, so the hall is fullest around 10am–1pm rather than at takeoff. Sunday and Friday are the next busiest; Tuesday is typically the lightest. The week strip at the top of this page shows the modeled peak for each of the next seven days.
Taxis leave from the rank outside baggage claim at the fixed fares set by the VI Taxicab Commission; the ride to Red Hook on the East End takes about 30 minutes in normal traffic, with luggage charged per bag. For St. John, take the taxi to Red Hook and the passenger ferry to Cruz Bay. For Tortola, ferries run from Red Hook and from Charlotte Amalie to West End and Road Town; bring your passport, the BVI is a separate country.
St. Thomas (STT) has the most mainline service — American, Delta, United, JetBlue, Frontier, Southwest and Sun Country on nonstops to Miami, Charlotte, New York, Newark, Philadelphia, Washington, Boston, Atlanta, Chicago, Orlando, Fort Lauderdale, Minneapolis, Detroit, Denver, Baltimore and more — plus Cape Air, Tradewind Aviation and Seaborne Airlines on inter-island hops. St. Croix (STX) is served by American (Miami, Charlotte), Delta (Atlanta), seasonal mainline routes and Cape Air. Tortola (EIS) has no mainland nonstops at all: regional carriers only (Cape Air, interCaribbean, Silver Airways, Winair) connecting through San Juan, St. Thomas or Sint Maarten.
STT and STX are both in the U.S. Virgin Islands, so departing passengers clear U.S. Customs before TSA. EIS is in the British Virgin Islands, so departing passengers clear BVI Immigration and security instead; travelers connecting onward to the U.S. mainland clear U.S. Customs at their connection airport, usually San Juan (SJU). The airport codes: STT is Cyril E. King Airport on St. Thomas, STX is Henry E. Rohlsen Airport on St. Croix, EIS is Terrance B. Lettsome International on Beef Island, Tortola.
The security line is driven by departing flights, not by ships: cruise passengers leave on their ship, not through STT. Ship days do add taxi traffic on the Charlotte Amalie waterfront, which is the road between town and the airport, so leave earlier when several ships are in. Weather delays are rare outside hurricane season (June–November); a departure that slips later moves its crowd later too, and the forecast reads the day's schedule fresh every hour.
Modeled from published flight schedules and typical load factors; actual wait times vary. You're on the St. Thomas (STT) guide — St. Croix (STX) · Tortola (EIS) · USVI taxi fares · ferries · weather.