cheshirepete

Never experienced this before, but at T5 last night on way to Manchester, a journey I make at least once a week. Had to seek assistance at photo gate boarding via G1. Apparently my photo didn’t track. BA had thus off loaded me due to this.

Had to wait around 20 minutes for security to come and was approved. Last on board door closed! Wonder how often this happens? Must be fairly rare.

Globalist

corporate-wage-slave

There are 3 UK airports that use biometrics on domestic travellers, LHR (at T5 and T2), LGW (North and South but different systems) and MAN, and I've seen problems very occasionally at all 3 locations. It's fairly rare, the usual problem at LHR is a changed booking (e.g. SDC airside), but yes there are occasionally technical outages too. The worst one I can recall was where a NCL service had half boarded - and I was in the first half, unusually - and the system stopped totally. There have also been outages at the recording stage so that no domestic passengers can enter LHR until it was resolved. And then there was a case of a woman and child with a Geordie accent so pronounced that I could identify which of a dozen streets in Wallsend where she came from - and yet a UK Border Force person was sent over to verify she wasn't an illegal immigrant. We all waited 30 minutes for this to be completed. There used to be a problem - now fixed apparently - where if people went through the system too quickly when the server was running slow that the pictures would go out of sync, one person getting no biometrics attached and the next traveller getting the previous person's details.

In your case, it's probably only going to happen to you once in your life (on the basis it hasn't directly happened to me yet) and it was just a slightly annoying delay. It's even rarer for people to be offloaded on to another flight since usually there is checked luggage involved, which would have to be offloaded too.

cheshirepete

KARFA

YacozA

Having just been in Australia where you can board a flight without any ID from street to seat; this makes a lot more sense to me now.
I guess at UK airports since there are not dedicated domestic terminals, this is the best way to do it; except where it breaks down.

EuropeToAsia

OP you were very lucky. I was once stuck at LHR for 6-8 hours (offloaded and next flight booked out, and no seats on EI either) after joining the international transfer queue and no photo having been taken. Despite telling the BA staffer I was going to DUB they didn't pick up the mistake, also resulting in my DUB flight delayed 20 mins while my bag was unloaded. Since then I ALWAYS transfer via immigration and landside. Now I know even that isn't foolproof.

Saltire74

HIDDY

Far too tame for the Daily Mail. If the OP had titled the thread ''Escorted off BA aircraft for being a suspected terrorist!!!'' I would have agreed with you.

Glad to hear they sorted it out and you got back on the flight. ^

newyorklondon

DM EXCLUSIVE: "I was kicked off a BA flight because my security photo made me look ugly."

Flaps Down

I used to do domestic UK flights out of LGW where this was the case, so long as you were only carrying hand-baggage. Domestic and international pax mix and it's not until you get to the gate that they are (were?) separated again. I was asked for ID, but very rarely, and it was almost apologetically!

:D!

The best way to do it is to have dedicated domestic areas of terminals, but the airports want domestic passengers to go shopping.

I hope CWS is right that it only happens to you once in a lifetime, as it already happened to me at LGW N on the way to JER several years ago. The BA agent said it was my fault, which got him a telling off though I wouldn't do that now...

Calchas

And the domestic passengers want airport lounges ...

It's a reasonable compromise for all involved.

SDUKAG

Something similar but for different reasons happened to me at MAN in March this year which taught me a lesson. I got through to the lounge fine, but on leaving the lounge I was then was stopped trying to pass through the checkpoint to get to the gate (I can't remember the boarding gate number but it was the first gate you come to after passing through the checkpoint if you turn left out of the lift from the lounge).
When they scanned my boarding pass, there were no biometrics attached. What I think had happened was that I was upgraded in the lounge, which I noticed and then I updated my boarding pass on my phone. This apparently didn't have any biometrics attached. They called security but they couldn't send anyone for some time, so they ended up checking with the BA gate (fortunately right next to us) that I was on the manifest and then were able to get approval for me to board. Slight moment of panic and for these UK airports I had better carry a paper boarding pass or just not try to be efficient with updating the electronic version in the lounge.

Tobias-UK