Originally Posted by
wong8888
i took an Aer Lingus flight recently. The time shown on the boarding time was the gate *closing time* instead of the boarding time! Almost missed my flight :-(
Anyone know why they do that? Good to know if any other airline does that ....
Without meaning to sound cheeky it's so you know not to miss your flight. Whereas the gate closing time set on the boarding passes I think is set slightly early on purpose to get people to the gate for early departure (for example my 21:10 flight from LHR tonight has a gate close time of 20:40, I'm pretty certain they can't close the gate that early if someone hasn't boarded, I think they need to wait till at least 20 mins before on SH flights).
I prefer a gate closing indicator rather than nominal boarding time as usually can get this from the screens in the airport and gate closing time gives you a cut off time but that's just me I can see arguments for both (ideally they could give you multiple times like BA).