Originally Posted by
salut0
The fact that it's so hard to get back from B or C gates makes one wonder what people who actually go there mistakenly end up doing. And why there aren't more such complaints in the Daily Mail of their missing their flights etc.
From experience I know that every day someone or other goes to the wrong gate. Though I think it's one of the best signposted airports around, nevertheless some passengers every day end up in the wrong place. This is very different from the blogger here, since he was attempting something no mainstream passenger would want to do. And he went past at least 3 signs saying "don't do this".
From mainstream passengers, some just get very confused by the layout, are stressed by travel, don't think clearly and don't ask anyone. One can appreciate there may be language barriers, and not everyone uses Latin script either. Some people are short sighted and dyslexia isn't going to help either.
The worst case I came across was someone not finding gate A4 (the UK bus gate). He went to B for some reason, then back to A, and then took the Flight Connection bus to Terminal 4! Other cases I can recall was someone who didn't notice the main departure screens and just went from gate to gate to check the departure location. Another case involved someone who was going from gate 23 (Dublin) and went to 32, which is the first of the B gates and is prominent on signs. Some people also see C52 (first of the C gates) and assume that is good for the gates in their 40s since it's much nearer than gate 12, the last gate before the transit. I tend to keep an eye out on people looking lost, and I'm happy to intervene if needed.
If someone did accidentally get into B or C then the passageways get them back to A in 5 to 10 minutes, and most airport/airline staff would point them the way to this. It is actually signposted, so it's not really "secret", but I guess you do need to know what you're heading for. But unfortunately there are some airport/airline staff who themselves are amazingly unaware of the process, particularly the biometric process for the Common Travel Area, which may also have been a factor here. After all, staff in the airport use T5 in a very different way to passengers. I perceive HAL have a high staff turnover, some of their staff are clueless about the building. It's not helped that off peak the BA Customer Service desks in B and C are not always staffed. In B there are 2 of them, one is never staffed though the one next to Boots almost always has someone there.
Taking that caveat into consideration, nevertheless the clear message here is "if in doubt, ask".