Stansted Gate Train to Nowhere
 

I was recently almost stranded at the wrong gate at Stansted! I had a flight on Ryanair to Bratislava. After getting through the unruly crowds at security I looked at the overhead monitor and it said the gate for my flight was not yet assigned. 45 mins. to departure and not assigned? I figured rather than stand around like all the idiots staring at a stupid monitor I would simply guess and then once there hope that a monitor would show the correct gate and then go to it.

It was almost a disaster. I took a train to gates 20-39. When I arrived I went up an escalator and then there were only two flights leaving and neither was mine. No information at all what gate mine was leaving from and whats worse, this was a ONE WAY TRAIN. There was no way to get back to the other gates. At that point I only had 30 mins to departure and I panicked. I finally found some fantastic airport worker taking a break who called someone and they drove me across the runway to the right terminal so I barely made the flight.

Why would this airport do something so stupid to trap people on a one way train to nowhere? I have been through airports all over the world and have never seen anything like it anywhere. At least there could have been a warning posted that there was no return from these gates. Beware.

Hmmm; it's clearly the fault of the airport that you took a train to go to a pier while you had been "told" that you had to wait where you were. Now, sorry for this, but what was actually stupid? :rolleyes:

Whats stupid is not conforming to the standards of basically every other airport in the world.

I would say both. It isn't smart to just randomly pick a pier to go to when a gate hasn't been posted, but it equally isn't smart to not have two-way trains. After all, there is always the possibility of someone misreading a sign.

I'm with @KLouis here. The fault is with the OP not Stansted. The trains are not "one-way". They take departing passengers to the piers and then return to International arrivals with arriving passengers. That is why there is no return for people who go to the wrong gate.

There are signs saying wait in the main terminal until your gate is announced. If the gate is not announced then no one will be at the pier. Unless, that is, you know who to ask. There is a manned security post at the entrance to the domestic arrivals pier. They have a display showing the gates so I often wander up there and ask.

There are often many reasons why the gate isn't displayed such as late inbound aircraft, another aircraft still on the allocated gate, etc, etc. However, I do get pissed off when they know what gate is going to be used but they don't tell you so as to keep you in the retail areas as long as possible.

I did something similar to the OP a few years ago, only I was going to see off some friends leaving on a different flight to mine.

I had plenty time to get back to the central area and wait on my gate, but no means to do so.

A simple sign would save most of this at minimal cost.

ETA: Don't the monitors say "Gate will be announced at xx:yy"?

This would require them to put in a second track and buy a second train, and have trains running empty in one direction (i.e., TO the arrivals area and FROM the departures area). I can't really see them doing this just for the one passenger in however many thousand who ends up in the wrong part of the airport by mistake. As we can see from nmstough's post procedures are in place to rescue such stranded passengers - no need to build a separate train line for them.

nmstough - really, what do you think you were doing, just randomly heading off to one of the three separate departure areas when the gate was no yet known? And what made you pick Satellite 2, when (as can easily be established by looking at the departures board) 99% of Ryanair flights depart from the gates at the opposite end of the building? You were the idiot here (to use your own word), not all those other passengers that waited for the gate to appear on the board and then made their way to the right place.

Agreed, If the train is being used both ways and not simply running empty back to the original starting point, then I agree that there is certainly no reason to build tracks and run trains for the occasional errant passenger. However, it does sound like some signage might be in order to minimize the possibility that someone does this. That wouldn't cost much.

You're right, it wouldn't be expensive; but what makes you think that a passenger who takes a train to a random pier when told to wait would a) understand the sign and b) follow what it said?

1. I wasn't thinking only of the OP. Presumably there are other reasons why someone might take the wrong train. Further upthread someone did a similar thing to join another person traveling around the same time to see them off.

2. I have already stated that I didn't think the OP made a wise choice. That doesn't mean that Stanstead shouldn't have better signage.

Do we know, for sure, that there aren't any signs warning passengers that they can't return from the satellites?

No one has yet posted that there are. I would be happy to be disabused of my assumption that there are not.

I imagine that "You want to go where?" was the response of the airport official approached by the OP when they found themselves "trapped" in the satellite. :D

(That sounds rather Sandra Bullock-ish!!)

But they don't. They want to "trap" you in a central terminal area, and by doing so are more likely to extract more cash out of you through their dining and retail "experiences".

It's not an uncommon feature of airports to withhold gate information until the last moment; particularly when the gate facilities are constructed simply to facilitate the immediate departure of the passengers, and therefore are lacking in facilities.

I'm sure I've read that, under the new MAG management, in response to passenger feedback they're putting up gate information a bit earlier than they used to (in the dying days of BAA ownership I think it was all a bit desperate).

Of course the quid-pro-quo for such a thing is the "vast improvement" to your "departure experience" (their words), i.e. an overhauled departure lounge with lots of new retail opportunities. That said, if they are going to exist, perhaps it's preferable that they're better, and work to attract people in their own right rather than just as prisoners. (Not that I'm going to be an airport retail convert any time soon!)

The absurd walk-through 'Duty free' shop after security and before the departure lounge is absurd though, and I wish upon it many broken bottles of spirits and eau de toilette courtesy of errant baggage!