ryanair gate closing times

198321

so im due to fly with ryanair now and see plane from dublin arrives at 16.45, yet get closing time is 16.55 for flight to dublin. it is going to be same plane.

so i wonder how they are going to get people off and new people on in 10 minutes?

in my experience gate closing time with ryanair is time when gate opens. they only say that to make sure everybody is there and they have no delay as when the gate opens they want to have people on as soon as possible, but im always on time and end up waiting there for ages. why european union ban this practice ? eu cares about size of bannanas sold but that aerlines are doing this,it doesnt bother anybody, just me ? i would understand if there was delay in opening of gate but they know it is not going to close at time they say it will ...

i think its only because they have very little time to turn plane around, but thats their problem, not mine. if im wrong please correct me.

IngazZagni

All airlines do this. It is to have people at the gate on time and not show up at the last second which could affect certain operational requirements. It looks like it will be the same aircraft. Sometimes an aircraft will arrive early and thus will be ready to depart early from the gate but they can't leave until the gate closure time. If the aircraft arrived early, it may have had a tailwind, meaning the return leg would need to depart 10 minutes early in order to arrive on time due to the headwind!

Flier

It might be a bus out to a hard stand - in which case turning up late just won't do! You might find everyone sitting on the bus and the departure gate closed at std -15 or whatever time they've choosen.:(

Miaireland

I have seen a Ryanair flight leave Edinburgh Airport. They boarded the people using the back steps while people were getting off using the front steps. Their turn around was less than 10 mins.

coylemj

I was flying back from Bournemouth to Dublin on a Friday afternoon about 20 years ago with a work colleague, he was the nervous type. You could see the apron out the window and the place was hopping with Irish journalists heading home from the Conservative party annual conference. We were flying back to Dublin with FR and they kept announcing that the flights was 'closing' even though the incoming plane was nowhere to be seen. Meanwhile my travelling companion was having a canary with fright in case he missed the flight while the rest of us were knocking back pints to beat the band.

Sure enough, the plane appeared out of the clouds and we all descended to the prefab with two doors marked 'Gate 1' and 'Gate 2', had our boarding cards checked and we strolled out to the plane while the incoming passengers were still disembarking.

tippilot

Re Edinburgh,

Unlikely that happened to be honest. For so many reasons.

1. Against regulations. No possibility on board security checks.

2. Knowing the layout of Edinburgh quite well, there is no way to do this without inbound and outbound pax crossing over on the ramp. No way, I repeat no way that would be allowed to happen.

3. It would actually impede the disembarkation process by using only one exit, not help it.

4. 10 mins is an impossibility for a 737-8.

I call bull**** on that. I'm sorry!

Flier

I presume the crew were doing their security check between the deplaning and boarding passengers.
Interesting!

tippilot

coylemj wrote: »

.

Sure enough, the plane appeared out of the clouds and we all descended to the prefab with two doors marked 'Gate 1' and 'Gate 2', had our boarding cards checked and we strolled out to the plane while the incoming passengers were still disembarking.

It's called pre boarding. Happens all the time. Good time saver actually.

coylemj

tippilot wrote: »

It's called pre boarding. Happens all the time. Good time saver actually.

Doesn't that contradict what you said about EDI passengers mixing...

tippilot wrote: »

Re Edinburgh,

Unlikely that happened to be honest. For so many reasons.

1. Against regulations. No possibility on board security checks.

2. Knowing the layout of Edinburgh quite well, there is no way to do this without inbound and outbound pax crossing over on the ramp. No way, I repeat no way that would be allowed to happen.

tippilot

No. Pre boarding keeps the pax separate at all times. You may have strolled out onto the ramp but you were not let near the aircraft until it had been completely disembarked. This is usually achieved by some form of barrier system.

Flier

Pre boarding is where all the pax docs are checked and they are corralled into a secure area. But in bound and outbound pax cannot mix, and the aircraft has to have a full security check before the next batch of pax are allowed on.

coylemj

tippilot wrote: »

No. Pre boarding keeps the pax separate at all times. You may have strolled out onto the ramp but you were not let near the aircraft until it had been completely disembarked. This is usually achieved by some form of barrier system.

But I specifically said that was 20 years ago. Didn't inbound and outbound passengers in LHR T1 used to mix up to a few years ago before they set Stop/Go sliding doors system to keep them apart?

And didn't Pier A in DUB allow the same until a few years ago?

tippilot

Ah missed that bit sorry.May well have been the case. Pre dates my involvement in aviation by 10 years or so!

Locker10a

coylemj wrote: »

But I specifically said that was 20 years ago. Didn't inbound and outbound passengers in LHR T1 used to mix up to a few years ago before they set Stop/Go sliding doors system to keep them apart?

And didn't Pier A in DUB allow the same until a few years ago?

Ya you are right inbound and outbound passengers do mix inside some airport terminals, but never on the apron! Before passengers are allowed out to the plane they have their documents checked at the gate and again by the crew upon entering the aircraft, they would never be allowed to mix with any other passengers disembarking the plane out on the apron! Besides as has been mentioned security checks must be completed before new passengers board the aircraft.

coylemj

Locker10a wrote: »

Ya you are right inbound and outbound passengers do mix inside some airport terminals, but never on the apron!

I accept that that is the case nowadays.

Locker10a wrote: »

Before passengers are allowed out to the plane they have their documents checked at the gate

deffo

Locker10a wrote: »

and again by the crew upon entering the aircraft

not always, though I usually flash my boarding card at the crew or ask them outright 'is this the flight for Dublin?' to make sure that I'm on the right plane, especially when access involves walking across the apron where you could conceivably pick the wrong plane.

Flier

There's a couple of ways of reconciling pax on flights.
You always have to have your boarding pass and passport/id checked. Then either the crew check the boarding pass again at the door of the aircraft, or they do a headcount to make sure the numbers tally. There may be other accepted ways, but it is a security requirement and so the method used must be approved by the authorities.

APM

Ryanair no longer do headcounts unless required because of some discrepancy.

RE: The gate closing time, if for some reason a flight has a strong tail wind + short cuts and they arrive on stand 20mins early the flight can be fully boarded and the gate closed with 10mins to go and leave early. It does happen quite a lot. Especially in winter with low pax loads.

tigershould

Ryanair general pratice is that the plane arrives from previous destination 25 min before departure. The arriving passengers disembark in the first 10 minutes. The departing passengers board in the next 10 minutes leaving them 5 minutes leeway.

qwertypop

This is prob a really stupid question but why can they not mix.

It's not as if an inbound passenger is gona give an outbound a "package" because they've just come from there. And it's not because the inbound pass is gona double back and become a outbound pass that would be stupid

???????

homerjay2005

very simple, the gate closure time covers them in the event the plane lands early, they can leave early. that is the earliest time they can leave without people having grounds for a complaint. another thing to consider is that 40 mins is the latest check in time, so that only leaves 10 mins for people to get from check in, to security - not alot in many airports.

realistically however in 90% of cases, if a boarding card has 16.00 departure time, the plane will be boarding from 15.45 to 15.55 and not at 15.30 as the closing time states.

Easiest way to avoid issues though, is just be at the gate with 10 or 15 minutes to spare before the closure time, to allow a pint or two!

H3llR4iser

tippilot wrote: »

Re Edinburgh,

Unlikely that happened to be honest. For so many reasons.

1. Against regulations. No possibility on board security checks.

2. Knowing the layout of Edinburgh quite well, there is no way to do this without inbound and outbound pax crossing over on the ramp. No way, I repeat no way that would be allowed to happen.

3. It would actually impede the disembarkation process by using only one exit, not help it.

4. 10 mins is an impossibility for a 737-8.

I call bull**** on that. I'm sorry!

You are right on all points, except I saw the same thing happening in Rome Ciampino, again with Ryanair, a couple of years ago; Actually, I was on the very flight. Probably what happened was an attempt at pre-boarding gone awfully wrong.

Long story short, our Dublin-bound flight was supposed to take off at 10.55 or so but the inbound aircraft landed around 10.30; In order to speed up operations, the gate agent pre-boarded us and we all climbed in the shuttle bus that then proceeded to close its doors. After waiting parked just outside the gate for a few minutes, the bus drove up to the plane, and that's where something went pear shaped: instead of stopping short of the plane and waiting for communication/signal, the driver just stopped and opened the doors. The last of the inbound passengers were still climbing down the front airstair and into their bus; however, the aft stair was empty and all the people from the outbound bus started racing up it. The cabin crew stopped the people at the door until the disembarking had completed; however, for a couple of minutes it would have looked like the plane was disembarking and embarking at the same time to somebody looking from the outside.