Originally Posted by
KARFA
be very careful with this strategy in T5 of waiting until the status is boarding. Gate open shows up when the gate staff arrive and sign in, but they can board without advancing the status correctly. It’s only when they need to close the gate they must advance the status, and will hammer that F10 key and go through boarding, final call, and gate closed in a matter of seconds. Unfortunately I have seen this happen a few times due to poor training.
I'm one of those people who tend to stay in the lounge until 'boarding' status, but I was almost caught out recently at LHR where the status went from Gate Open to Boarding to Final Call in a matter of seconds. Got there just in time to join the queue of people walking down the jet bridge onto the plane, which probably took another 10 or 15 minutes from there to actually get onboard, so theoretically I still had plenty of time to make it, but in practice I've seen people denied boarding for being late even though they know there's a delay and the plane isn't leaving the gate for another 30 minutes or so.