Last night's BA838 LHR-DUB flight boarded on time - at 18:15hrs - for a scheduled 18:45hrs departure.

However, as departure time approached, dispatch informed the crew that two passengers would have to be offloaded as they had failed the security camera biometric conformance at the gate.

The resulting baggage off-loading led to a 45min delay in departure time. Is this a common event - and do gate staff have any leeway with regards to the computer system? If I were off-loaded from a flight just because of a computer glitch (and where Gate Staff could clearly see from the on-screen photo that it was me presenting at the gate) I'd be rightly miffed off. "Computer says no...?"