Reply To: Heathrow Terminal 5 lounge – time limit ?

[JDB]

@Alex G it could happen to any class! There isn’t a block on early bags and some are frequently early owing eg to overnight bag drop or long transfers. When all is running smoothly, the risk of early bags not being picked from the bag store to your flight store is small. However, for instance when people were arriving way more than three hours ahead because of press stories about security queues, yes systems were overwhelmed so many bags, for many airlines didn’t make it. When they do the pax/bag reconciliation, they will hold up the aircraft for extra bags on board but not missing ones, whether you are in F or Y.

Although it’s an airline rather than airport issue, the airport doesn’t want overcrowding at check-in or security as everything is planned around normal passenger flow (with contingencies) so they press airlines to tell passengers to check in 3 hours ahead but not more and to respect hand baggage rules.