Newly Wed

Globaliser

IIRC, those last three letters may be the reason. The flight information displays at LGW are controlled by LGW and run according to scheduled departure time, not the real-time estimate on the day.

FlyingScientist

I always check the inbound on flightradar24...

YacozA

Never knew this... good to know actually.

Flight Radar 24 checks will occur at LGW from now on.

Oxon Flyer

This being Gatwick, were they scanning BPs, checking passports and 'boarding' passengers into the holding room during this period of time ?

Are you sure about that ? All heavily delayed (and cancelled) flights at LGW are still shown as 'boarding' approaching their scheduled departure time ?

Globaliser

I have seen it said here, by way of explanation when there have been previous complaints. I suppose I ought to have caveated my first post acccordingly.

argonath

Having lurked these boards for quite a while now is it just a general assumption that anything related to a problem re BA is its own fault and never due to something else ? (Referring to original post..)

Deltus

I understood it automatically displays "Boarding" unless someone intervenes. Presumably for a 20-30 min delay where the gate agents can see the aircraft is there and will be ready soon, they don't bother intervening. If it's cancelled or severely delayed, I'd hope the system would get updated accordingly.

martin102

corporate-wage-slave

No, you were more or less right Globaliser. The LGW operates a latent FIDS (Flight Information Display System) across all airlines (and there is rather a lot of them now) and over both terminals, so the way it works is that there is an underlying assumption that the flight is on time. Gates are then shown as "boarding" etc according to a set of rules. So for example the North gates 101 to 113, so-called "over the rainbow" gates, are shown to passengers an extra 5 minutes over gate N59, and the "boarding" is fixed accordingly. This FIDS, more common in the USA (it's used in MIA), was inherited by GAL from the BAA and a few other ex BAA locations still have it (SOU for example). Now if a flight is running more than about 15 minutes late, the airlines are supposed to contact GAL Control to adjust the timings, and for long delays this tends to happen. For delays under 30 minutes or so, may be it happens, maybe it doesn't, the system really can't cope with all flight changes being moved by 10 minutes here or there. The BA lounge agents see slightly more information on their system (and can easily tell if boarding has actually started, that's on FLY in a big red box). But the LGW default is "it's all going to plan and it's all going swimmingly", which at some airports isn't unreasonable, but at arguably the most busy single runway airport in the world is somewhat untenable in my view. LGW's FID, provided by VisonAir, is technically quite advanced in terms of hardware, the underlying scheduling software is not.

So I think I have put this up in previous threads, but basically you best be guided by the gate numbers and the 20 minute rule (noting that very occasionally some gates still use buses for departure), and the be guided by the information on BA.com/arrdep and/or the lounge agents. In this case, I would imagine that BA.com/arrdep (also available on the App) would have shown a bit of a delay and so the FIDS "Boarding" should not necessarily be taken as a reason for leaving the lounge there. So long as you don't get lost and it's not something strange like the JER Embraer 190 subs, you can stay in the lounge until FLY boarding has started since all gates are within 10 minutes of the lounge.

beeorchid

Also a problem at Manchester Terminal 3 a couple of weeks ago - everyone including Business and status passengers spent 25 minutes standing in a corridor without any seating available. There wasn't a gate lounge, just a corridor.

Airprox

That has been the BA gate setup at MAN for years and years and years unfortunately.

DYKWIA

How do you know which is your incoming flight? I can understand it at an outstation, but not at LHR/LGW.

jfallesen

In most cases, the aircraft registration for your outbound flight will be available in FR24 prior to depature. Then track the aircraft to see where it is inbound.

Sometimes it not shown and in some cases you may end up on a different aircraft if they need to reassign on short notice for one reason or another.