[Gin&Tonic]

This can be a very contentious issue and really varies as we all know, carrier by carrier but also handling agent and airport.

I agree with the BC time and still stick to that despite an incident when once using a lounge at Man for a DUB flight. MAN airport have the most ridiculous departure screen boards that will insist on sending everyone to gate at the same pre-determined time prior to departure regardless if it’s a DASH 8 to be filled or an A380. Many a time you would arrive at the gate and there would not even see an aircraft on stand from its inbound sector.

On the Dub occasion I saw the screens in the lounge “Go to gate” and ignored them but still arrived 5 minutes in advance of the BC time 25 minutes prior to scheduled departure, to be told the flight was closed and I would need to go to customer service. Having explained the circumstance to the gate agent I was then lectured on the perils of staying in the lounge just to get another free drink down my neck (actual words) rather than arrive promptly at the gate.

Several letters later I was given a full refund, a free ticket Man-Dub-Man and assured the offensive gate agent had been reprimanded.

Similarly there have been occasions I have arrived late especially on transfers and the gate agents have held flights open, and in all fairness this has happened many more times than me being closed out.

So some sympathy with Daytripper depending on circumstance.

[AnthonyDunn]

@ Senator – 03/09/2014 09:43 GMT

Your story reminded me of an incident experienced recently en route to SYD at HKG. There I was in plenty of time enjoying the experience of the Wing downstairs (I discovered the Wing upstairs on my return) when all hell broke loose at the front desk. Someone was throwing such a wobbly that it sounded as if he was attempting to break the place up. Together with half a dozen others, I got up to see what was happening and one of the “northern brethren” (the locals in HK have a rather less flattering expression for their northern cousins…) throwing the tantrum to end all tantrums. He had, apparently, been late arriving at his departure gate and had been denied boarding. His response, rather than to admit to his own error, was to go completely off his rocker and start attempting to smash up the front desk of the Wing.

I was genuinely astonished not just at his appalling behaviour but how little reaction there was from the desk staff. After some ten minutes of this uproar, Hong Kong’s finest were then summoned. They then allowed this one man volcano to continue venting for a further ten or so minutes. Eventually, even they had had enough of this virtuoso display of truculence, petulance, self-indulgence and aggression. He was marched off in cuffs. In London, he would have been given one warning and then arrested on the spot.

As has previously been observed, manners cost nothing and rather than a rant, a pleasant smile and/or making light of the situation very often gets far more of a result, as you demonstrated.

[canucklad]

I suffered a similar fate to some other people on here. G&T’s story particularly echo’s mine.

In my case, I booked a £40 return FR flight from EDI-DUB. This was part of a longer journey with EK to HKG.
Arriving back into DUB , We had 4-5 hours to kill. Knowing what Ryanair are like we made our way to the gate very early (1 hour+) , no staff, no aircraft and just a few passengers mulling about. Obviously, the next stop was the bar, no more than 50 yards from the gate. Further we planted ourselves in front of the boards…..

As flights above and below us changed from —- “Go To gate” —-“Boarding “and in red “Final Call” our flight steadfastly remained at “Go to Gate” .
Tired and wanting to get home, we became concerned when it still showed “Go to Gate”, minutes after the gate was supposed to have closed, so we walked the 2 minutes to the gate to find the gate agent walking away. When we approached her, she told us the aircraft had left 15 minutes ago.

Bearing in mind they also had to off load our hold baggage!! We pointed to the boards and asked for an explanation about inconsistency as ours still showed “ Go to Gate” . She became very defensive and blamed us for not being at the gate 45 minutes before….. We asked why she didn’t put out a call for us……Even more defensively she said, she had put a call out,at the gate, and we should have been there to hear it!! And then stormed off through the first secure door she could find.

After an hour we managed to reclaim our luggage, and then requested an explanation from FR’s customer service agents…..what they let slip, was , once the bus leaves the gate it’s the equivalent of the aircraft departing, and it’s the Captain that makes the decision. ??

I calculated that meant that particular flight could quite possibly have left 5 minutes before the official gate closing. And I’m also going to speculate that its more likely that the flight had a light load, based on the evening flight being half empty, and me and my pal were an easy target to grab some extra revenue.

tried to book EI flight instead,no joy. But the EI staff intimated that they had people regularly requesting new flights with them, because of what had just happened to us…..so I can only presume it is another FR screw the customer tactic.
And they did …they took us for £120 each!!

After letters and photographic evidence both the DAA and FR blamed each other and suggested that in future we shouldn’t trust the system to work 100% all the time. ! No apology, never mind compensation or partial refund!

And a final note of warning…..As a frequent flyer I became complacent, confusing , final check-in time (30 mins at LHR) with gate closed time with LCC’s. I’ve been at Stansted watching a board displaying my flight had departed, when in actual fact it hadn’t even landed from its previous destination !!

[robert1950]

Can I offer an opposite case for my experience with BA. In June we were flying back from the USA through Gatwick and connecting to Edinburgh. We left the Business lounge in plenty of time as I too do not trust the boards. Unfortunately I misread the board and instead of heading to our gate we went away to one of the farthest gates in the whole airport. When we arrived there was already a large queue and as we came up a lovely old Asian lady turned to us and said “I am so excited, this is my first flight. I am so looking forward to going to Barcelona.” My wife and I looked at each other and I was just about to tell her and her family that they were in the queue for Edinburgh when we noticed that that staff all had Easyjet uniforms on.

To cut a long story short, picture 2 slightly plump 60 year olds “running” almost the whole length of Gatwick North . At one point my mobile rang and I looked at the number but not recognising it I just ignored it and kept moving albeit slower.

Having got to the stage whereby we couldn’t run anymore but simply walk as fast as we could, we resigned ourselves to missing our flight and having to pay for new flights. As we approached the departure gate, one of the BA staff took one look at us and seeing the red faces and panting chests just smiled and said “We were just giving up on you, I tried to phone you to let you know that we were closing the gate. ( Call I ignored) Also had the business lounge announce that the flight was leaving and call out your name. We had just decided to give you 2 more minutes when I saw you coming towards us.” We apologised to everyone we passed as we made our way down to the plane and every single member of staff just smiled and welcomed us aboard. The door closed immediately we boarded. We cannot praise the BA staff that day enough. One of the reasons we will use them again this November going out to the States again.

[Author]

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