Is there a way to deduce the departure time of a flight from the boarding time?
I recently traveled from Sweden to Thailand through Doha, Qatar. I was checked in for the two international and the domestic Thai flight in Stockholm, by the time I arrived at Doha I had completely forgotten what the departure time for my flight to BKK was.
In Doha the flight departure monitors don't show English names and there was no flight listed that had the time listed on my ticket. So of course one resorts to using the trusted flight number. This I found after some time, it had some added 0's to it, but nothing too strange.
But the flight time didn't match my ticket, so I went to the info counter that pointed me towards the same gate that was listed on the monitors, but did not provide any reason for the time discrepancy between the monitor and my ticket.
On the screen at the gate it did say "Next flight to Bangkok", again time didn't match. But the flight number did match. There were people boarding through the gate, but I thought it was way too early to board, so I asked an official there that told me to sit down and wait after I show my ticket, then quickly ran off.
It was me and about 20 other travelers that were equally confused at this time.
Later I figured this out: "Next flight" they mean "upcoming flight after the current one", they simply didn't post anywhere what the "current" flight was, which would have made that clear.
Of course the time on my ticket was the Boarding time, but the time on the monitor was the Departure time.
At BKK I was treated to a similar situation, by having my boarding time on the ticket and not the Departure time. But the info at the gate was much more clear and also a helpful lady showed me a list with departure and boarding times, flight number and destination.
After I got my luggage at the final destination I could confirm all this by checking the information found on the print from my booking confirmation.
It has never been a problem before because I've never been as tired and never in an airport that doesn't show English at all or even airport codes. At least I think that's why, I never noticed the problem before anyway. And since it was 20 others with the same experience there must have been something weird going on in Doha?
My question now is if there is any way I can avoid similar confusion in the future when traveling?
Can I find out the departure time in any easy way when I have forgotten (or accidentally thrown) my printed booking information?
Best Answer
The simple answer is no as each airline and airport will set boarding times differently.
They may take into account gate location - if the gate is longer walk from the main departures area the gate may open early for earlier boarding.
They will also consider the flights destination - if the flight is an international flight they are likely to open the gate earlier to allow for the potential increase in passengers boarding.
Bigger aircrafts will also require longer to board. For example boarding 350+ people on a 747/A380 will take longer than 150 people on an A319.
It may also depend on how long the turn around is for the aircraft. If it's a LCC the chances are the plane will land, arrive at gate, get emptied, get refilled and depart. As such the gate number may not be known until relatively late on.
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Is boarding time same as departure time?
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Answer 2
Many airlines, travel agents, and third-party sites such as TripCase and TripIt offer flight status alerts that send an SMS with gate info and departure times in advance of each flight.
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