BA staff travel

[Hufty]

I am non-BA staff and am travelling from LHR to the USA next week on a BA standby ticket. They told me at LHR that I need to check in at the Queens Building - is this correct? In the past I have checked in as a normal punter, received a boarding pass without a seat assignment, gone through security then been given the seat assignmet at the gate when it became apparant that I was going to get on.

Do you know if this is true for just BA or other carriers at LHR too??

I will be taking carry-on only.

[Hartington]

It is some years since I used BA staff travel but if you are going to the USA I would have thought it most likely your flight will be going from T4. Off hand the only T1 flight I can think of when check in at Queens might be appropriate would be SFO. At T4 the staff travel office used to be right at the London end of T4 before you go into the building.

[VS-LHRCSA]

If your flight departs from T1 then, yes, you will need to go to staff travel in the Queens building in the departures level, down the corridor from Premier Check-in and around the corner. If you only have hand luggage then you won't need to go to bag drop but you'll still need to check in.

[bealine]

If your flight departs from T1 then, yes, you will need to go to staff travel in the Queens building in the departures level, down the corridor from Premier Check-in and around the corner.
This only applies to LONG HAUL destinations.
San Francisco and Los Angeles are the US destinations served by Terminal 1 (other long-hauls are Vancouver, Tokyo, Hong Kong and Johannesburg ).

For short-haul staff travel, you check in at the "Wendy House" in Zone East (up in the corner where UK Domestic flights check in). Your bags get sent down and you go to the gate for onload.

For all BA staff travel, it is now essential that you are listed prior to check in. There are self-service computers at Staff Travel in the Queens Building or in Zone East by the Wendy House to enable you to list if you hadn't done so previously.

Hope this helps and enjoy the strength of the Great British Pound while you're in the USA!

[bealine]

All staff travel in T5 will be done by Self-Service in a specific area. You may elect to be alerted by SMS text message when onloaded - usually between 45 and 40 mins before scheduled departure time. (ALL Flights close for check-in at STD -45 mins)

You will then have 5 minutes only to drop your bags and get to the BAA conformance point! as ALL boarding passes cease to be valid within 35 mins of STD!

(This applies to ALL passengers, staff and commercial! The BAA computer will reject you and the BAA security guard will refuse gate access once the STD -35 threshold has passed.)

At the gate, an indicator is flagged on the computer system against passengers who have failed to get through the security "conformance point" at STD -35 and those passengers will be automatically off-loaded by the system!

This will, no doubt, improve punctuality but will not be popular with passengers until they get used to it!

[Hartington]

So the BAA employees at the entrance to security will be stopping passengers passing if the boarding pass has "expired"?

I can see a few "Airline" style arguements resulting from that!

And, while frequent travellers may get used to it the rest of the world won't. This will be ongoing forever.

[The_Banking_Scot]

Hi,

Thanks for the advance notice Bealine!

Occasionally I have been cutting it fine ( ie 40-30mins before departure for the return leg EDI-LHR-EDI on business ( with a boarding pass already provided when I checked in at EDI) so will need to ensure there is plenty of time for arriving at LHR.

On the other hand ( more time in the lounge!!):} before walking to the gate ( I assume boarding for domestics will continue to be started around T-20mins? (based on my flight experience)

Regards

TBS

[Donkey497]

Oh Joy!:(

Boarding passes timing out well before the planes are scheduled to leave!

What happens if a plane is delayed in-bound or goes tech?

Are they magically resurrected?

If so, who gets the job of telling people who have already been told they're too late for their flight they can actually now go through for flight, but it's now going to be late. 3 sets of bad news is not usually tempered by one lot of good news, even if it is that you can get your flight after all.

Yet another reason for fights to break out at LHR security queues and gates. What other incentives do we need to be given to stop flying through this parody of a prison camp.:*

Who claims to have thought this one through? I'd lay hard cash that it was someone who's never been on a ticket or check-in desk.......

[Wilton Shagpile]

Just thought to refresh this thread - does anybody know yet exactly where in T5 the staff travel kiosks are and what the "BAA conformance point" is? Is that another word for security?

I may be travelling out of T5 transatlantic west coast this summer on an ID90 but probably won't have had an opportunity to look round the terminal before I get there.

Personally I always go to great lengths to avoid LHR but I'm prepared to give T5 a chance. I'll be connecting from a domestic flight at T1 with carry on only. I may live to regret this...we'll see!!