[billpie]

Experienced this several years ago on a Zed listing for LHR-MAN, had my boarding card issued by staff travel behind Cafe Nero, made my way directly to Security (no queues) to be turned away as I was seconds within the 35 mins.

I was then directed back to staff travel, Zone A and finally the general public Res/ticket desks, where I was on the end of the rudest, most aggressive behaviour I’ve witnessed by airport staff from a BA Manager. But that’s another story…

I also imagine there are some instances of North Security being closed and passengers redirected to South (which is the case for the majority of my recent T5 trips) – a walk of a few minutes – and missing the cut-off.

I get the 35-min rule, but I often pass through Security at MAN within minutes of boarding (sometimes during boarding) and embark without any issues. For very early departures that extra time in bed is priceless!

[WillieWelsh]

If ‘conformance’ exists in T2 I have never been made aware of it and nor was I when the Star Alliance were in T1. Perhaps it’s a BA thing?

AFAIK the T2 gate closed policy is at T-15 at which point bags come off. I’ve yet to have a departure delayed from there as they were looking for bags to off load in fact it’s a long time since I was delayed for that reason anywhere on any airline.

I haven’t read about it anywhere either but I believe the gate closed policy is a Star Alliance thing which is adopted fairly well across the board.

[Marlow1971]

I still remember regular trips 2001 to 2004 from LHR to MAN which involved 20:10 hrs HEX from Paddington to CTA followed by a manic dash through pedestrian tunnels and up to T1, through security and straight down to an A domestic gate for the 20:45 BA shuttle and a sprightly 757 take-off. I’d often be home in Wilmslow before many colleagues from the same meeting had trundled back to the Home Counties.

[Onlyplanes]

From a BA perspective, I understand why they implemented this rule to reduce flight delays as it has financial consequences for the airline. Probably, flight delays were an acute problem for BA at Heathrow.

But other airlines at other airports have very few delays as well without this 35 minute rule. It would be interesting to know how they do it. For some airlines, if you are not at the gate 15 minutes before the flight departure, you will not be able to board the aircraft (AF sends you a text message to let you know that you are too late to board the flight), unless they have not started to board passengers. In this scenario, you have an opportunity to catch the flight past security screening.

[Author]

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