Why Airports Reveal Gate Numbers at the Last Minute

LHR flight departure board
Flight information display boards at London Heathrow Airport. Photo: Star Alliance.

Ever noticed that some airports hide gate numbers from their flight information display boards until as little as 30 minutes before departure?

It’s not an accident. Some airports have decided to intentionally make people wait until boarding is about to begin to learn where their flight will be leaving from.

This tactic is more commonly employed at airport terminals with a larger concentration of low-cost airlines. For example, Melbourne Airport’s Terminal 4 (used by Jetstar and Rex) hides gate information until the gate “opens”.

But it’s not just low-cost carrier terminals. Auckland Airport uses the same strategy in its international terminal. And it’s particularly prevalent in Europe where many UK airports – even London Heathrow – do exactly the same thing.

There is some logic behind this, but let’s be clear: It’s designed to benefit the airports, not flyers!

So, why do airports hide gate numbers?

One obvious reason not to display airport gate numbers until boarding commences is that gate numbers can change. If a last-minute gate change is necessary, this minimises passenger confusion and inconvenience as they haven’t already been told to go to a different gate. But that’s not the main reason!

Most frequent flyers want their passage through the airport to be as straightforward as possible. The shorter the walk to the boarding gate (or lounge), the better. But airports have different priorities.

Airports have many different revenue sources. These include things like landing fees, passenger movement charges, advertising billboards and the (often exorbitant) carpark fees.

But part of the business model often also sees the airport operator earning a commission on sales made by the retailers within the airport. The actual commission amount varies depending on the type of retailer, with commissions on duty-free sales generally higher than food & beverage purchases, for example.

This model is not necessarily used by every airport, and there may be other factors that contribute to the total fees paid by retailers to the airport operator. But where this is the case, clearly it’s in the airport’s best interests to maximise the amount of money spent by passengers waiting for their flights.

Airports want passengers to dwell where they’ll spend money

One way to maximise retail sales is to maximise the amount of time passengers have to spend in the airport, where they’re essentially a captive market. And if passengers don’t know which gate their flight will be leaving from, this encourages them to spend more time “dwelling” around the main shopping and food court areas of the airport.

This strategy is particularly useful at places like Melbourne’s Terminal 4. There are almost no shops (and minimal seating) around the Jetstar gates, which are a 5-10 minute walk from the main food court. The airport would prefer that passengers don’t just go straight to the gate, where they are unlikely to buy anything. (If everyone did this, the Jetstar gates would also be chronically overcrowded.)

Another reason this tactic is more common at airports or terminals serving a large number of low-cost carriers is that these airlines might pay lower airport charges.

Airports often make concessions and charge less to low-cost airlines. They do this on the basis that these airlines will stimulate demand and bring in extra passengers who will also spend money at the airport. As budget airlines are more likely to attract leisure flyers who are likely to spend more money at the airport than frequent business travellers, there is some sense to this.

Sometimes airports push it too far

While delaying gate information can increase dwell time in the airport’s shops, it can also verge on being ridiculous.

For example, I recently flew with British Airways from Aberdeen. The airport would not reveal the gate number until eight minutes after the scheduled boarding time listed on BA’s boarding passes.

Meanwhile, EasyJet passengers in Aberdeen had to wait until 30 minutes before their scheduled departure time before the screen would show their gate number. This is the same time that EasyJet closes its departure gates!

Aberdeen Airport departure board showing gate information
Departures board at Aberdeen International Airport. Photo: Matt Graham.

Similarly, when flying out of Toulouse–Blagnac Airport in France, the airport only revealed my flight’s boarding gate five minutes before boarding started. The gate was a 10-minute walk away.

Airports need to strike a balance between maximising their own revenue, and giving passengers enough time and information so they don’t miss their flights. This kind of thing is particularly frustrating for airlines when it directly contributes to flights departing late because passengers haven’t arrived at the gate on time.

Other ways to find your flight’s gate number

If you’re at an airport that doesn’t provide gate information, don’t worry. If the gate number is also not listed on your boarding pass, you can often find it with a simple Google search. Just enter the flight number into Google. The departure and arrival times and gates will usually appear!

And on the off chance that googling your flight number fails to show the gate number, you could try finding out which aircraft will be operating your flight using a website like FlightAware or Flightradar24. Then, track the plane’s inbound flight and see which gate it will be arriving at.

Using an app like Flighty can also be a big help. Flighty not only gives you all the information you need to navigate through the airport, but lots of other useful stuff too. In fact, it will often inform you of any delays to your flight before the airline does.

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Yes to Flighty. Sitting here at SIN at 8:30am and was told at check-in that the gate would be available "about 10:15" for an 11:10 departure. Flighty shows me that my gate is B1. Not least because the app also tracks the incoming flight and it pulled into B1.

Recently at LHR I knew the departure gate was different from that showing on the boards because, again, it showed where the incoming flight ended up.

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European train stations have been doing this for decades...

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Agree that Flighty can be invaluable for this. Usually between Flighty and/or Trip It Pro, any gate info (including changes) are easily identified in the palm of your hand.

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European train stations have been doing this for decades...

Not all of them. Switzerland of course publishes their platforms three months in advance and they’re stuck up on the wall at the stations.

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Heh heh heh ... bit of a giggle at myself.

Airports want passengers to dwell where they’ll spend money

... which had me thinking to myself "yeah like that annoying terminal which they use for Deathstar in Melbourne".
Two paragraphs later ...

This strategy is particularly useful at places like Melbourne’s Terminal 4. There are almost no shops (and minimal seating) around the Jetstar gates

What's that old saying?
"Gate minds think alike"?

Sydney Central used to be all over the place with intercity platforms in the early 90's (don't know about interstate). You'd always have to check the indicator board, your train could be anywhere (rarely the Cronulla/Heathcote/BondiJn line underground but that DID happen on occasion - I know because it's a couple of hundred metres away from the intercity platforms so was a PITA if you weren't early!).
But now it seems to be published at least, I don't know how far ahead but the various apps which tell you which train to catch at which time now also tell you the platform.
I doubt that's anything about revenue though, and more about (dis)organisation.

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I don't think it works that well for Jetstar passengers at MEL T4 because everyone knows where the Jetstar gates are and that there is a very long walk ahead so one shouldn't leave it too late to get there.

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I think there are also genuine considerations like (a) better passenger foot flow, and (b) chaos avoidance in doing this - up to a point. But on the other hand, releasing gate numbers 30 minutes before departure on an EasyJet flight is extreme!

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Ive only ever missed one flight in my life and it was entirely due to the airport not putting the gate on the boards until it was too late.

I was in Buenos Aires at AEP (which mostly services domestic flight but also has a handful of intra south American flights) flying to Rio (GIG); I checked in a bit over 4 hours before my flight and a gate had not yet been allocated. Gate agent told me to go through initial security and then sit upstairs (there was no lounge) and monitor the boards to know which gate.

This was bad advice they should have told me all international flights leave from only 1 of 2 gates (next to each other) and that there was secondary screening for international.

The gate came up on the boards only 25 mins before departure, I head to the gate only to be confronted with a massive secondary screening line and immigration; i asked in broken spanish if I could go to front as my flight was boarding but queue naz_ was only letting passengers being paged jump the queue. Problem was LAN was paging me but only at the gate not in the security area.

Get to gate just after flight took off, only to be scolded by LAN that they were paging me, told them about not being allowed to come forward and they put me on next flight but I had to sit at a gate which only had a 1 tiny shop selling newspapers and candy for 7 hours til that boarded.

Given turn around times for international flights they should always know at least an hour ahead and push the data to the boards in real time.

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Great example just this evening for me at OOL. Flighty and Trip Advisor were both informing me of initial - and changed - gate details for my flight well ahead of the departure boards in the QPub.

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LGW is terrible for this - everyone stands in the central area and stares at the board - then a mad stampede as the gate is put up...

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