Apologies if this was already covered, but I had a bit of a strange situation on a flight from LHR to JFK last Thursday. We were sitting in the B lounge waiting for boarding to commence, and waiting, and waiting, but both the flight information screens and BA App just kept saying 'Go To Gate', no mention of flight boarding. About 25 minutes before the flight, I asked the gate agent what the delay with boarding was - she looked confused and said she wasn't aware of any delays on the flight, then said someone may have forgotten to change the flight status to boarding. At that moment, the App switched to Flight Closing, so it was a quick dash to grab bags and head to the gate.

A few other people were making a run for it, so clearly we weren't the only ones caught out. Got to the gate just as the last few economy passengers were going through, and I asked if they'd forgotten to announce boarding and the agent said 'yes, she did' with a glare at his colleague. So, I'm curious as to whether this is a regular occurrence, why there isn't a process in place to avoid human error like this, and what would happen if you'd turned up too late to board, having relied on the information screens? I guess that as they were previously saying 'Go to gate' BA would deny any responsibility, but it certainly made me realise that there's no point in relying on the screens, or even the app, which is normally pretty good at telling you what's going on.