doug_999

So the wife (UA *G) and kids (15 and 18) were headed home to ORD from Athens via ZRH. They went to the lounge in E because that's where their flight was departing (in fact they were directed there after going into a lounge in A). Near departure time (no announcement and still nothing listed on the electronic departure board), they inquired if all was good. The lounge agent said they had had a gate change and now would be departing from a D gate and they should hurry over there since they had to take a train. YIKES. So they bolt to the D gates and are greeted with a security checkpoint? Here they were hassled and basically told "tisk tisk" as they had liquids with them including stuff bought in the duty free. The one agent continued to hassle my son about the water in his Yeti ("Water is a liquid" he kept saying). My wife tried to explain that there as a last minute gate change from E - but they would have none of it. All of her duty free stuff was removed, scanned, and then slowly re-bagged (almost as if they were trying to make them miss the flight?) Finally, after 10 minutes dealing with the agents "slowly" pouring the water out of my son's Yeti and the "careful" repacking of the duty free items (new bag, kept old bag, wrapped up carefully and put in new bag), they moved on - only to hit another passport check at the gate to have all their passports checked and go through questioning.

My question is... is this normal? I thought most of the flights to the USA left via E gates? In fact there were people on a Newark flight going through the same thing as my family due to a last minute, un-announced gate change. I had read that the board in the lounge was rarely updated, but man, the way they were treated - and the stress of cutting it close to making their flight. Not fun.

Thoughts? Does this kind of gate/concourse switch happen often? Is it normal to not have the board updated and/or no announcements in ZRH? Why the security checkpoint in D?

Great airline and all, but makes me question if going through ZRH should be avoided in the future.

airoli

Gate changes happen. Not often, but they do.

When they happen, the departure monitors are updated and PA announcements are made in the public areas, but not in the lounge. In fact, no announcements whatseover are made in the lounge, pax are responsible to check the monitors.

Due to the layout of ZRH, there are only two options to get from E gates to D gates: One involves leaving the secure area and being re-checked (your family's choice), the other involves entering Schengen space and then leaving it again - i.e. two immigration checks. Hard to say which one is more of a hassle.

As for security proceedures, they are obviously standardized and the same rules on liquids etc. apply to everyone. It sounds like the agents were thorough and considerate by helping your family carefully repack everything. I wish the TSA was like that.

Finally, all US departures have a second passport check at the gate, any gate, thanks to US requirements.

A tempest in a teapot.

Viennafly

It is true that most of the flight to the US leave from the E gates, but there is often one flight of the mid-day US flights that leaves from D. This happened to me a few times in the past two years and I found this quite annoying due to the longer walk from the lounge and having to use the inferior lounges on A or D, as opposed to E.
Still, I think that your wife and kids must have given the wrong information in the A lounge, where it was assumed that all US flights leave from the E gates. LX is typically very consistent with gate assignments in advance. So, I am not convinced that it was a "last minute, un-announced gate change" - otherwise the flight would have been significantly delayed as many passenger would have to make the trek from E to D. Did they have a specific departure gate in E on their boarding pass and/or displayed on the departure boards? The second "passport check at the gate" is unfortunately something required by the US authorities.

shipsmail

Often1

When things happen, either the flight is cancelled for lack of its assigned gate or the gate is changed.

I would be grateful for the operational work to keep the flight.

doug_999

Yep, except, the monitors in the lounge were not even showing their flight They were checking them like crazy and that's why they finally asked.

Well that's good to know - I think with them having liquids with them, the second option would have been better.

Ha - they were anything but considerate Seriously, it was the "sealed" bag of duty free items and when one takes two minutes to roll up the "used" plastic bag that has been torn open, something is fishy. Also 2 minutes to yell at my son about liquids and and another 5 to "dump the water out" - just seems weird. If that's considerate, I'm not sure what inconsiderate is

True, I guess I forgot about it because it was a 10 second thing leaving Munich (3 people, 3 separate lines, all well setup). For them it was a 10 minute crush of people all going to one person.


To be fair, they arrived with a 4 hour connection - so things might have changed during that time. However, since two flights were changed (Newark and Chicago) and everyone was rushing together, I do suspect this was a last minute change. There were just too many people (my daughter commented on how many people she met on the train looking nervous and how she asked two of them "gate change?"). And checking more - their flight did end up leaving 40 minutes late.

athome

I wouldn't have waited a minute to inquire, if my flight does not show up on the departure screen.

Viennafly

To be fair, the departure boards in the ZRH lounges and many others throughout ZRH only show maybe 40 flights. In particular during the peak of departures ~noon and if there are delayed/cancelled flights at the top of the board, sometimes not even flights departing within the next 60 minutes are displayed.
But I agree that nowadays you can use your smartphone etc. to get up-to-date information and/or ask the lounge staff.

SwissTraveller

Sorry to hear about the hassle. On displays in E-Lounges only flights departing from E-gates are listed. This may explain why the flight in question was not displayed. As others mentioned before I wouldn't hesitate to inquire lounge staff.

Fabo.sk

I'm fairly sure I watched the status on my Vienna flight on the board in E.
Obviously that flight didn't leave from there... but maybe the boards are smart enough to only show flights from other concourses if someone from that flight has checked into the lounge?

craz

Ive flown UA to ZRH numerous times and we usually arrive into the E Gates, taht is if we are on time or pretty much so, but when we arrive extra early or very late, we parked at the D Gates.

If the arriving plane is D gated then thats where it will depart from a swell, and they wont tug the plane over to the E gates

Ever since my 1st D gate arrival, when departing I always have been checking where is the Incoming flight going into D or E, so that I can make sure I have the needed time to get to the D Gate if needed

I was a bit surprised that they allowed the OP for this part of the thread to keep their duty free as is and not be forced back to to DF to get it rebagged, but as they found out Yep no liquids will be allowed. Thats E to D or D to E

airoli

Just to avoid any confusion relative to the OP: While your logic (flight arrives at D, flight departs from D) holds for UA, it obviously doesn't hold at all for LX, the home carrier at ZRH, which the OP flew.

Incoming long-haul aircraft are routinely tractored to maintenance, cleaning etc. and then back to another gate for their next mission. And of course it's not always the same aircraft arriving from ORD that will depart for ORD again.

ced_lx

craz

My bad, I thought UA flew to ORD also NS

But yes if its an LX flight then where it arrives into has no bearing unlike non LX flights