Just wanted to share a very positive conformance-related experience at LHR today.

I was connecting Muscat-LHR-Newcastle with a 70 minute connection at LHR.

Recent timekeeping on the MCT-LHR service has been abysmal so I was not optimistic.

The Newcastle departure was at 1425 and doors of the Qatar A330 opened ex Muscat at 1349 at B Gates. At that stage I was downbeat as I thought I had next to no chance, especially given I would never make -35 conformance at A flight connections.

In the event, I was first off the aircraft, down to -4 on the lift and sprinted through the underground walkway.

I arrived at domestic connections at T-27 and had been automatically offloaded. After 2 phone calls the agent advised me to proceed to security. Unfortunately, at the first, second and third attempts my boarding pass was rejected at the biometrics prior to security.

By this stage it was T-23 and the agent re-printed my boarding pass (with a different seat assigned) and I proceeded to transfer security. I politely jumped the queue, made my way to gate A22 and was on board at T-14. Oddly, I was moved back into my original seat at the gate. I was last to board the aircraft and departure was on time.

So my advice would be, especially if HBO and especially if gold, conformance can be over-ridden to considerably less than 35 minutes at flight connections.

Thanks to a very helpful agent, I avoided a 4 hour wait until the next NCL service.