Originally Posted by
JOUY31
I would guess that, as BA with its conformance check in LHR (your BP needs to be scanned at security no later than 35mn before the scheduled departure time, no exception for Premium or Elite passengers, unless I am mistaken), they want to increase operational reliability. No insider information, though.
Indeed. LHR T5 is huge and it can take a long time to find the gate on the screen and walk to it (possibly taking a train). The 35 min limit (strictly enforced) makes sense to be able to get everyone at the gate on time.
What is surprising here, is that the HLE seems to apply only to pax CKI physically, but those without checked bags having CKI online (or mobile) will not be subject to that limit. My experience is that late pax are often those who OLCI and arrive late to the airport. That will not change even if physical HLE is raised to 60 min. But imposing a 40min HLE at small French or European airports seems a bit strict and unpleasant to business pax if the limit applies to kiosk CKI without checked bags.
As
San Gottardo pointed out, I guess that they wish to incentivize people to use other means of CKI and reduce the number of airport agents.