Why your flight seems so far away from your gate

To the credit of airlines everywhere, my experiences in travel tell me that last-minute gate changes are fairly rare. I can’t remember the last time I sprinted from gate 1A to gate 237C because my plane decided to park somewhere else. ● More often, my complaints have to do with how far the gate is from the terminal door, but a far away gate

can be frustrating no matter what.

Gate assignments at most airports are a surprisingly complex ballet. And after a recent trip had me passing many empty parking spots to my gate, I wanted to learn more about how it all works. “It’s never as simple as you would like it to be or as straightforward as we would like it to be,” Matthew Cornelius, executive vice president of Airports Council International North America, an industry advocacy group, told me. “It’s a mix of physical and contractual issues.”

How are gates assigned?

Cornelius said one of the key determining factors in gate assignments is the size of the plane operating the flight.

“Gates are designed and built based on aircraft type, so not every gate can take every type of aircraft,” he said.

Planes are generally classified into narrowbody and widebody. Widebody gates, as the name implies, require more room, and those tend to be further out or at the ends of the concourses because there’s more space for those larger aircraft, Cornelius explained.

“There are some gates that swing both ways kind of, but those swing gates, when you put a large aircraft on a swing gate, that may take out the ability to use those gates around it,” he added

The aviation geeks among us have probably noticed markings on the ground that show exactly where different aircraft types have to park at each gate for the jet bridge to align correctly with the door. That’s a good indicator of how versatile your departure gate may be.

Cornelius said airline contracts also play a role in determining where planes can park.

He said airport contracts with airlines are on a spectrum from “exclusive use,” where one airline has more or less sole access to a particular gate, to “common use,” where the airport operator has complete control over the gate’s use and can assign it to any airline as needed.

“In circumstances where the airline has the whole concourse, then it’s really up to the airline what their plan is for the future,” Cornelius said. “Of course, it’s not as simple or easy as

maybe it looks to somebody traveling.”

Airlines typically start planning their gate usage about a year out, when they publish their schedules, and fine-tune it more about 30 days before a flight, with further massaging 72 hours out and then on the day of departure.

“Day of is probably the most important in terms of gating because that’s when they know what aircraft will be available, which flights are actually going, that sort of thing,” Cornelius said.

What leads to last-minute gate changes?

Many factors can lead an airline to swap gate assignments at the last minute, from a change in the aircraft type to mechanical issues on the ground.

“It’s usually a mechanical (issue) or something, or there’s a delay. You’re supposed to go into C39 or something and the aircraft that’s on C39 was supposed to be gone, but it’s not, so the gate planners and the operational controllers make a decision at that point,” Cornelius said. “Depending on how tight and how busy that airport is at that particular time, that may make 10 or 12 changes or just 2 or 3.”

In the event of major disruptions, like a pile of delays and cancellations due to weather or some other emergency that leaves an airplane out of place, Cornelius said airports can sometimes move planes around, even to gates that may be assigned exclusively to a different airline.

“Most contracts with the airlines at an airport have what’s called forced accommodation, so the airport authority can step in and say ‘Hey, American, you’ve got exclusive use of this gate, but we need to offload this aircraft,’ ” he said.

Cornelius added that airports are increasingly moving to a common-use model for gates, which provides terminal operators more flexibility.

So next time you’re not happy with your gate assignment, just remember there are a lot of moving parts, and it’s nothing personal if you have to walk really far to get to your plane.