Moderator, Iberia Airlines, Airport Lounges, and Ambassador, British Airways Executive Club
Join Date: Feb 2010
Programs: BA Lifetime Gold; Flying Blue Life Platinum; LH Sen.; Hilton Diamond; Kemal Kebabs Prized Customer
Posts: 64,096
Ryanair also have problems with this at LGW (and have complained to GAL about it).
The usual layout is to have a short-cut filter route and a clear board stating Priority Boarding feeding through to a single GAL operator doing the biometrics. Which seems incredibly, tediously slow. If there is a problem, not all the desk have a telephone so s/he may then need to stop all boarding until the can contact control, but that's off topic. Either way there are usually 2 or 3 BA gate staff waiting for the biometrics, and clearly not working at full speed.
Now out of I guess 20 domestics I have had one experience where there was no Priority Boarding sign - it may have been a late gate change, I recall it was raining heavily - but otherwise if you are Gold you shouldn't have been challenged, it is standard procedure at LGW. If there wasn't the very clear sign in position then I'm afraid you were out of luck on that occasion, but it is another reason for boarding late......