Originally Posted by
jrl767
not unique to LHR; seems to be pretty common throughout Europe
if I had to guess, the airlines and the airside merchants (including of course the big companies that run the duty-free operations) are in cahoots
It also makes sense - you have central concourse areas with seating, food, shopping and dispatch people to the gate area before boarding.
I prefer this to giving a gate assignment 24 hours in advance at DFW, which invariably changes 6 times between then and departure. In addition, most of the major US airports are pretty poor - in part due to this spread out non-cohesive design. We constantly complain about hubs where there is no where to walk or sit, this is a function of restaurant, restroom, seating, deplaning and boarding all happening at the same time in the same place.
LHR does a particularly poor job of late gate communication, but that doesn't make the concept inherently invalid.