Originally Posted by
HNL2017
When I arrived inside the airport in front of the United ticket counter area, the first thing I noticed was that the Premier Executive line was closed off. Normally there are United employees out front directing passengers. This time there were none. So I looked ahead to the counter and saw two United employees behind the counter (at the Premier Executive section) who were checking in customers.
When the PremEx line is closed off & if there are people in the checkin line, I just lift the ropes & go there anyways. I've been instructed to do that by one of the IAD agents - she said they close it off so non-elites don't use that line when there's no on manning it.
IAD is constantly understaffed at check-in. It's not that there's a staffing shortage - it's staffed at the numbers they want it staffed, but that just isn't enough. They cutback staffing since installing all the EasyChecking Machines & it was a BAD idea! Mose complaints may bring this issue to UA's attention!! It seems they have a 1 person to every 6 EasyCheckin machines working. It's utterly ridiculous because if that one person gets caught up on a ticket issue, it takes 10 minutes to get a bag tagged for everyone else. Bottom line is that they need to hire more people. The money that they are paying for the baggage folks (the non-UA people that move the baggage off the scale onto the conveyor belt) would be better spent having another 2-3 employees.