Conformance times at T5 on long haul
 

Apologies if this is posted clearly elsewhere - a search rendered a lot of unrelated info and I struggled to make head or tail.

I’m under the impression that compliance is 35m cut-off at T5, although is that for both long and short haul? I’m on a tight timetable tomorrow for a DXB (350 :)) and don’t want to miss it!

Thank you.

Conformance is 35 minutes for all flights if starting from landside T5. It can be a little less on some Flight Connection combinations, but apart from that 35 minutes is standard for all services out of T5 including longhaul from T5C. The timing is taken from the gate in front of security.

Apologies if this is obvious but just to add gates/doors are closed at 20 mins before departure time. So meeting conformance does not necessarily mean mean not missing the flight. For example a bag sent for a random secondary scan and then a departure from T5C gates would quickly eat into that 15 mins.

And for completeness bag drops close 60 minutes before long haul and 45 minutes before short haul flights. A number of years ago I did get a bit of flex on the latter deadline at Gatwick, but I wouldn’t recommend it!

Thank you both. And I realise my failure to find this was the fact I was using the wrong word!

And your C word is starting to stick in my head too! Hopefully it will be dislodged before long.

Perhaps a Mod can change the title (unless I can? Not obvious...)

You can use the red triangle logos at the side of the thead view, under the names and information for each person posting the reply, to contact moderators. An example item to contact is "thread retitle" so if you can't immediately see a way to change the title yourself, I think it reasonable to ask the moderators to do it.

Now that the thread title has been changed I'd love to know the original C word. Care to share it?

*ompliance :)

Oh! I had been built up to expect something saucier.

Conformance is fairly strictly enforced by BA computer system. The 20 min gate closing is more of an information to motivate pax to get to their gate early. In theory it is enforced and the rule can be used to turn down late pax. But often, boarding is not completed and door closed 20min before departure time.

Yes this does mirror my own experience too.

I suspect some of this comes down to the implications of missing the flight and individual attitude to risk.

For me I would never plan as tight as hitting conformance at t-35m then being at the gate at potentially less than t-20m. I’ve been on enough BA flights where they have been completely boarded before t-20m. The staff may have waited for a last passenger to close the door but equally they may not have done.

However, if I was held up for some reason I would still go to the gate as fast as I could because, as you say, there would still be a decent chance of making the flight.

One key factor here is the use of bus gates, where there is pressure on the gate staff there to close up at 20 minutes and no later, and the wording on the FIDs (display screens) underlines the fact that the gate will close 20 minutes before departure.

I can recall one situation where I was on the final bus, they closed the gate at 18 minutes to departure, but for some reason the bus didn't leave immediately. Someone rushed to the gate a minute later, and I could see what was going on from the bus. From the body language of both passenger and agent, the passenger was kept offloaded even though it would have been possible to get them on the bus with only a few seconds of further delay. Now that doesn't happen often, it's the only time I've seen this so clearly, and usually agents try to be flexible. But 20 minutes certainly can be a real deadline.

One thing we rarely do as a forum when talking about conformance is discuss alternative arrangements. Of course, we know the other "extreme" which is let people through and let a mess happen as in most other terminals, but one interesting experience is Eurostar where instead of a black and white conformance, if you pass security stamp stage after their recommended time, they will stamp a message effectively saying that you are welcome to go through but boarding but because you arrived after the recommended deadline boarding is not guaranteed (and, in effect, if you miss your train it will be your own fault).

I think that is probably a generally clever compromise. I'm generally favourable to some sort of conformance as I am typically arriving early and have been the victim of people thinking that their plans meant they were "supposed" to arrive at the airport 45 minutes before schedule and couldn't possibly guess that a tube or train can ever be 10 minutes late or that there is ever any traffic on the M25, but I also know that under the right circumstances one can technically make your flight with minutes to spare when passing through security less than 35 minutes before departure even though I would never advise it (flight a bit delayed, fast track, A gates, slow boarding effectively finishing 10 minutes before departure, whatever...).

At the moment, if you miss conformance, you start a sort of negotiation that may well involve you talking to BA staff (rather than security staff) who will ask that conformance be overridden. The issue is that everyone is wasting time at a moment when it is most precious, so the 3-5 minutes negotiations may well tip the balance from making to missing your departure especially as some people have a nasty habit of getting all defensive in those circumstances and telling their entire life story to a random agent to try and convince them that it really, really wasn't their fault why they are so late without realising that they are merely harming their own chances and that the agent couldn't give a monkey.

Even without any undue explanations, I have had those cases happening with transfer security (a slightly different process) at T5. Our and several other domestic flights was late and most people connecting, so everyone was rejected at the automatic security gates, agents would take the time it takes to assess whether each of them should be given the right to go through anyway or not generating a cumulative delay for all and we missed our flight to LA (last of the day) after queueing nearly 15 minutes for the agent to clear us, the gate having just been closed when we reached it. You don't have to take my word for it, but as someone who uses T5 on at least a weekly basis, I am 100% certain that had we been let through right away with a "at your own peril" message instead of having to wait for people to finish endless (and pointless) discussions, we would have made our flight with time to spare.

By contrast, the Eurostar system is clear and fast (and unrelated to questions of reaccommodation later). You are there after the deadline, you get the extra stamp which adds maybe 3 seconds and if you miss the flight this will be discussed later with the agents simply having the information that you passed security after the recommended time.

One of the differences between flying and taking the Eurostar is that a 35 minute conformance means people's bags can be offloaded (or not loaded in the first place) without delaying the flight. Of course, people still make conformance and then fail to turn up at the gate, but I'm sure it helps.