Sorry if this has been discussed, but I wanted to see how this situation should be handled. My wife and I recently took a MCO-MDW round trip, and checked bags both ways. I checked in on-line (t-24) so we already had BPs and used the Express Bag Drop lines. At MCO, as kiosks opened up, most of the time the people at the head of the line didn't move until one of the agents called out that certain kiosks were available. There were 6 kiosks working, with 3 agents, each covering a pair. My expectation for kiosk usage is that the next person or group should use any open kiosk without needing to be directed to it. We ended up waiting about 10 minutes, which isn't too bad, but I was ready to go to the beginning of the line and start directing people to open kiosks. Several times kiosks were unused for a couple of minutes at a time. My wife thought that since the agents were eventually calling people up, it was correct to wait to be called.

At MDW, more of the same, except that they had a monitor that displayed the next open kiosk. The monitor didn't appear to be automatic, it seemed that an agent had to do something to tell it that a kiosk was available, and they generally didn't until both kiosks that particular agent was manning were open.

So what is the preferred protocol, wait to be called, or step up to a kiosk as soon as the previous pax is done?