Originally Posted by
ND76
No one has any facilities near the gates in LHR T3. Those who designed the terminal built it that way One major difference with VS is that they take your boarding pass at the entrance to the gatehouse for a particular gate, rather than at the boarding door, so that once you enter the gatehouse, you are stuck there until the boarding door opens and they let people on the plane.
I hate that setup and try very hard to avoid entering such a holding pen. It used to be a big problem at AMS when security was done at the gate and the status "boarding" didn't necessarily mean that any customers were actually permitted to board the aircraft.