Hacker News Reader

Comment by icebraining | Hacker News Reader

It's interesting that the pass has the boarding gate printed on it. I've only flown in Europe (and only started around six years ago), but the gates are available only half-hour or so from the closing time. Is it common in the US to know the gate in advance?

View on HN

Almost always. It's nice because the terminals can be rather large and if you're going to grab a meal prior to departure, you'd want to go to a restaurant that is near the departure gate. Also, different gates used by the same airline are sometimes in totally disjoint post-security areas. Are these things not problems in Europe?

In the airports I've been to, I don't remember the restaurants being near the gates, but all together in a food court. So I guess you can't really grab a meal near the gate anyway.

As for the security, not really, in my limited experience. My home town's airport does have two separate terminals, with independent security areas, but different airlines fly from each.

It can be a small problem. Sometimes you're given a zone. Frequent flyers learn which ones are used most often.

Europe has airports ranging from some of the world's biggest (LHR, CDG) to some of the smallest.

At some airports, all flights will be international (e.g. Shannon). At others, all flights will be domestic or within Schengen.

Some airports are almost entirely used by budget airlines (London Luton), others have very few budget airline flights (London Heathrow).

That leaves plenty of flexibility for how the airport is operated. I'd expect a gate printed on the boarding pass as the larger airports with longer, non-EU flights. I'm not surprised when a Ryanair flight only announces the gate a short time before departure, since they have such a short turn-around time everything seems to be last-minute.

Makes sense.

I have been flying mostly within Europe, and have never seen this. For my flights gates are usually printed on the boarding pass and known well in advance (sometimes they do change, however). Half an hour before the gate closes seems quite impossible to me... how would anyone be able to make their flight on a decently big airport?

You know which terminal you're flying from, and I've yet to see an airport where you can't get from the central waiting area to the farthest gate in 15 minutes or less (20 if you walk slowly)

It's a huge pain - you have to sit in the central waiting areas, but can never really relax because you have to be alert for when your gate is available on screen.

Sometimes if it's far you'll need most of the time to get it. It's this way in London and I've definitely seen it a lot of other places in Europe too.

Yes, most airports print the gates on the boarding passes. A handful (mostly ATL) just give up, because they can't reliably predict the gate until 30 minutes before boarding.

Isn't it just the UK with this horrible practice? I've flown a lot in Europe and UK airports are the only one that display gates shortly before, even if the plane is already parked at the gate. I guess it makes people buy more food in the waiting area...

In US, gate information is printed on the boarding pass but is subject to change. In practice, it probably changes 5% of time.

> but the gates are available only half-hour or so from the closing time.

Depends on the airport and airline.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com