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.

Fair point - but the bag drop would still have needed to be made 60 minutes before the expected departure time. When people arrive at conformance 32 or 33 minutes before departure, the "fate" of their bag has already been sealed?

It is of course possible that someone would have checked the bag on time, then "wandered" and missed conformance which would mean possibly needing to offload their bags if they miss boarding, but I think that the vast majority of people narrowly missing conformance must be HBO?

I’ve heard quite a few stories of people who have missed their booked Eurostar being re-accommodated free of charge on the next service. It can’t be relied upon but my impression is that they are somewhat more flexible than any of the UK airlines anyway.

True. I guess most people who drop off a case then immediately go through security, unless they're with family/friends who aren't travelling and they all go off for a coffee or something after checking in. Maybe transit conformance is more useful in those circumstances. At least all these conformance times stop the airport being full of people running around in a panic :)

I was once told that BA have an internal target of gate closed at 12 minutes before scheduled off blocks time.

I've once turned up at T-34 and missed the flight but been put on the next. They tried to let me through but it was a B gate so couldn't get authority.

I guess I prefer the idea of a hard cut-off as the risk lies with me to make that, but agree with the UT comment about an 'at your own risk' approach: if you arrive HBO at an empty FW at 10am for a EU flight departing A20 its a 'whats the rush' situation. Whereas a 747 departing from C will probably already be materially loaded... I guess we live in a 'lowest common denominator' world, but those of us who know T5 better than our own offices know its never that black and white.

Speaking of which, my pilot friend has just says BA107 is departing from C52 today, so I better dash to Paddington!

It's currently on stand 534. Not seeing a towing movement booked yet. A target off blocks time of 1300 has been filed. Should be showing in the app as delayed/.

https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...d7a61d36e0.png

Thank you! I did see she was late in from TLV so perhaps that’s why she is elsewhere. It also gives me a bit of contingency, which is an unusual delight!

We read about similar situations many times in the FT forums.
"I was only a minute late, people were still queuing on the airbridge. I could have boarded without causing a delay"

However, if the GA has closed the flight for boarding in the DCS system then it is not a trivial action to re-open boarding and board another pax. The DCS system would have started calculating final load sheets, information would have been set to the crew and load controllers.

It might seem that GAs are not being flexible but in some cases the flexibility is not possible.

The Eurostar situation is a bit more fluid since "conformance" for Business Premier passengers and Carte Blanche holders is 10 minutes. My personal record is 12 minutes on a busy Friday early evening. Staff weren't impressed but they rushed me through at eye-watering speed and I wasn't the last to board -- they held the train for a couple of minutes for people who'd gone through the normal channel at STP.

To come back on topic, there is indeed a difference between a flight at A20 and a C53 which you'd struggle to reach from the FW 35mns before take-off, let alone form the normal queue... But gates change, and we all know BA's renowned IT struggles on the best of days so really. Smallest common denominator sounds like a good benchmark.

different at T4
 

not relevant to BA, but since we've got onto Eurostar 'cutting it tight' examples, gives me a chance to add my own record - getting off the Hertz shuttle bus at T4 at T-13 minutes on a Sunday evening, with no status - HBO, I ran to security which was dozens deep, begged the lady at Fast Track to let me through (which she did, even being nice enough to tell me the gate) and made it to the gate (KQ for NBO) at T-7, where I was the last to board. I was a rather sweaty mess though....

I remember once scanning my boarding pass at T5 fast track security at something like T-35:30 after an accident on the M25 had caused issues. I got to the (A) gate with plenty of time to spare, I think they hadn’t even started boarding by the time I got there. While I am sympathetic to the idea of conformance, I do think there are very clear differences between the family of four departing long-haul from a C gate with loads of checked luggage, and the single business traveller who clearly knows his/her way round the airport and is departing short-haul from an A gate without checked luggage. I like the EuroStar idea - as long as the passengers do not have any hold luggage, what do BA have to lose by letting them try their luck?

I have had some close shaves at other terminals/airports where conformance would have meant missing the flight; the most memorable are one at T2 (being dropped off at departures by an Uber at T-7; my pulse was slightly elevated when I got to the gate) and one in CPH (dropped off by the taxi at T-14 and having to get to a non-Schengen gate; memorable because the helpful SAS app told me “flight boarding” as I was getting into the taxi in central Copenhagen). I actually generally try to be at the airport an hour before; but I also think that occasionally missing a short-haul flight is, on the balance, more time efficient than always having an excessive buffer of several hours, so I fully accept the risk and responsibility here.

This actually happened to me a few weeks ago. I got to the gate T-18, and was offloaded as the last bus had already left. I had no idea it was a bus gate and it was the first time I had experienced for myself the 20 min cut off. Had I known it was a bus gate, I would have got to the gate with plenty of time!

What happened next in terms of your booking?

You could bus from any gate in T5, personally I wouldn’t risk turning up under -20. Very unlucky