Three of our house guests (a father, young daughter, and pregnant mother) were to have headed home this afternoon. They wound late due to various delays getting out and navigating Friday rush-hour traffic and got to the airport just over an hour before their flight.

Obviously that's a bit late. It often takes 20 or 30 minutes to get to the gate for an international flight. Still, well within doable if your papers are in order and you're checking most of your stuff.

Today, however, the airport decided to be a bit anal and turn back about 20 people for being at the airport "less than 3 hours before their flight" (even the airport's own web-site only says 2 hours is required). The people involved then had to pay $100CDN each (i.e. $300 for this family) to get on the flight tomorrow. There's nothing obvious on the web-site about penalties for being late, incidentally.

I don't know why, but I'd have accepted "you have to take the flight tomorrow and be early", I'd have accepted "you have to either pay $100 each for expedited service to get you to your flight or take the flight tomorrow", but to both delay the family for a day and require a $300 payment seems a bit over the top. If you want to put such rules in place, let people know about them a few months in advance, put the information front-and-centre on your web-site, and generally don't just spring it on visitors at the last moment.