My last several flights with US have all been characterized by very long check-in queues with substantially understaffed counters. Add that to the kiosks that work/don't work, and you've got yourself a mess.

Particularly frustrating for me is the situation at Portland ME. This was a full mainline station until last fall (yes, I know this is true for a lot of you) and then we got switched to mainline express. In the process, most of the good old timers walked or retired...... Now, in the middle of peak tourist season, our three 737-300s have returned -- almost all with load factors pushing 100%. The express flights are also jammed to the gills. Due to budgeting, however, the counter staff is almost always just one or two agents. Two agents handling the check in for mainline jet flights and all the express activity. Ridiculous.

Are the rest of you seeing this sort of thing out there?

Saturday morning (10am-ish) there was one agent checking in FC pax while there were six (yes, six!!) agents over at the FC kiosks, where two out of our four kiosks "out of order" signs on them. That's three agents per kiosk. And as I stood in the FC line for about 20 mins (with only four people in front of me), I watched four of the six kiosks agents chatting idley with one another at any given time.

Saturday morning (10am-ish) there was one agent checking in FC pax while there were six (yes, six!!) agents over at the FC kiosks, where two out of our four kiosks "out of order" signs on them. That's three agents per kiosk. And as I stood in the FC line for about 20 mins (with only four people in front of me), I watched four of the six kiosks agents chatting idley with one another at any given time.


When I checked in at 5pm on Saturday evening in PHL -- all the FC kiosks were inoperable and there were 3 agents checking FC in (there was no line). Security at terminal C was a zoo -- and they weren't letting preferred members bypass the line. I left and went over to B where I went right to the front of the line at security.

I have had similar nightmarish experiences in Boston. Why can't US learn "how to do it" from other carriers?

That's the trend these days:

Examples:

If you go to the supermarket these days, they've got self check out. They've cut back on staff on the full service line on purpose to push people to to go to the self check out. (I always go to the full service line because self check out just means lost jobs - jobs that the US can't afford to lose, and no value gain for me).

At IAD they introduced pre-pay parking. If you don't do the pre-pay in the terminal, you'll wait quite a bit trying to get to a real cashier. Meanwhile, at least for the first couple of weeks, they had people standing near the pre-pay checkouts to help people figure them out.

Most airlines are going to no full service check-in, just a line to purchase new tickets , and kiosks with one or two people to help anyone struggling to change flights, upgrade, etc...

USAirways is trying to 'train' their customers to be self-sufficient - check in on line, check in via kiosks, and only as a last resort wait in the huge lines to get a real person.

I don't have a lot of hope, it will only get worse. I feel bad for the airline employees that can't handle the wave of customers when something goes wrong (flight cancelled, weather delays, etc...).

Most airlines are going to no full service check-in, just a line to purchase new tickets , and kiosks with one or two people to help anyone struggling to change flights, upgrade, etc...

USAirways is trying to 'train' their customers to be self-sufficient - check in on line, check in via kiosks, and only as a last resort wait in the huge lines to get a real person.

This concept frankly is fine by me. I can well envision a day whereby I don't need to work with a human to get my baggage claim checks and confirm the seat assignment. In fact, if you really think about it, it is kind of amazing that we have gone this long with human-only airport ops. I stopped getting cash from the bank teller about 25 years ago.......

What this point fails to recognize, however, is that unlike my neighborhood ATM machine, US's kiosks are sadly plagued with errors and glitches that is causing them to misfire too often to be fully reliable. However, US has already taken significant steps to severly reduce staff. So, that means terribly overworked, underpaid employees and disgruntled, maxxed out pax.

Not a good formula for long term health.

DCA the past few Monday mornings have been like that. Fortunatley the FC line has been manageable. Now if they could only get a Preferred line at security.
I did notice that several of the kiosks were Out Of Order the last few weeks, and the lines have been astounding.
Add to that the fact that the woman that is supposed to "open the shop" Monday mornings is quite often late.

Particularly frustrating for me is the situation at Portland ME.

I just flew out of PWM last night and I understand your frustration. That was one of the most screwed-up counters I've ever seen. There were about 20 people in the line, but luckily no one in the elite check-in line. However, the agent closest to the elite line was very, very slow. The other agent took two people from the regular line before the agent in front of me finished his customer.

As I headed to the agent, the next customer in the regular line jumped past me to stand in front of the slow agent. I was about three feet from the agent, but I thought he would surely direct the other passenger to wait in line. He did not. He turned to me and said "I'll get you next" and waited on the other guy. Of course, three more passengers from the regular line went to the decent agent before this guy was ready for me.

I pointed out that there was no point in having an elite line if they weren't going to wait on the people in it and he said that if he sent the other person back they "would get mad." I was thinking that he was better off if they were mad instead of me, but I didn't get into it. I told him I was checked in on-line, but needed boarding passes since I didn't have a printer on the road to print my own. This took him a good 15 minutes. I don't think I've ever seen a less capable agent.

The coup de grace was a 3 hour delay due to PHL meted out 30 minutes at a time. They finally told me my connection was blown and rebooked me for the morning flight. I was outside waiting for a shuttle to the airport hotel when they announced that the flight was boarding. My trusty Blackberry reported that my connection was not in fact blown yet, but that I should have 30 minutes in PHL. I sprinted through the security, was the last one on the RJ and made my connection in PHL by 5 minutes. No thanks to anyone in PWM.

The lines at the US counter in FLL last Thursday at 1030AM were huge but I had preprinted my own BP and never needed to go near them. I don't know if the kiosks were working and if so were they crowded. My experience with US kiosks in PHL, DCA, and LGA has been good, but reports of recent breakdowns are not encouraging.
I don't think that US can be used at the moment unless you can avoid those lines by checking in online (and the question remains: does the website checkin function go down much?) .

When I first tried web checkin (when it was first available) it was awful. However, more recently it's worked flawlessly for me, though I haven't done it very often (maybe 3-4 times).

The last time I did it I could even pick exit row seats, which I don't recall being the case before.

Still, I usually use the kiosks instead of web checkin. When it's off peak times the kiosks are fine... Though there have been times I've seen them broken down in PHL, and eventually someone comes by with paper for the boarding passes and gets them running again.

GSO RDU PIT DCA IAD BWI BOS MSY SFO BUF DFW IAH

-IAH has no preferred line. When I asked the station manager about this, he said he took it out b/c their counter is so small and they needed more room for kiosks.

-In the other cities listed above which I frequent, I usually don't see what the big deal is. I always get in line for a human and am served quite promptly. MSY is a good example. On a typical day, you'll see 5 agents working + supervisor at the counter. 2 will be on kiosk, 1 will be on regular line, 1 will be on f/c, and the CSS will be floating, providing an extra pair of hands where needed and funneling people into the kiosk line, helping tag bags, and doing anything "complicated. If you look all the way at the end of the MSY counter, there is a computer which is pointed off towards the side, this was purposefully done so the agents working the line/kiosks can do things like UM's/excess bag fees, etc. Maybe this is something other cities should consider.

GSO RDU PIT DCA IAD BWI BOS MSY SFO BUF DFW IAH

-IAH has no preferred line. When I asked the station manager about this, he said he took it out b/c their counter is so small and they needed more room for kiosks.

-In the other cities listed above which I frequent, I usually don't see what the big deal is. I always get in line for a human and am served quite promptly. MSY is a good example. On a typical day, you'll see 5 agents working + supervisor at the counter. 2 will be on kiosk, 1 will be on regular line, 1 will be on f/c, and the CSS will be floating, providing an extra pair of hands where needed and funneling people into the kiosk line, helping tag bags, and doing anything "complicated. If you look all the way at the end of the MSY counter, there is a computer which is pointed off towards the side, this was purposefully done so the agents working the line/kiosks can do things like UM's/excess bag fees, etc. Maybe this is something other cities should consider.


This MSY situation does sound good. One issue, however, is that MSY remains full mainline service, unlike a significant number of former mainline stations that now find themselves mainline E X P R E S S. Your list of frequented cities is all mainline -- you lucky devil. My routine routes take me from PWM to:

ROA LYH CHO AVL ILM MCI YYZ

I have a miserable time these days coping with check-in at half of these stations. Add that to a severely overtaxed situation in PWM and it makes for a no-fun experience. ROA is another surprise -- many loyal PI flyers will well remember the days when ROA had more than a dozen PI aircraft overnighting there. ROA was a huge station and remained so until the US merger. Once that station went mainline express, the lines remain horrific at the 7am hour and lines often spill out onto the sidewalk all times of the year. Oddly, unlike IAH (a mainline sta), ROA maintains its elite/FC check in lines! :rolleyes:

My routine routes take me from PWM to:

ROA LYH CHO AVL ILM MCI YYZ

I have a miserable time these days coping with check-in at half of these stations. .......

Thank goodness AVL is still a breeze to fly in and out of! Former mainline (and local rumor is that AVL is high on the list for mainline return), with 7 daily Express flights to CLT. Without checked bags and with web check-in, I can show up a half hour before flight, get through security and still get on.