Originally Posted by
eternaltransit
It's less 70% great and 30% painful, I think it's more towards 90%/10%, but half of those 10% take up 90% of the time of staff - and incidentally I think force even the most professional staff to stop going the extra mile / engaging in "common sense" - i.e. using their full discretion to help out.
Check-in is a slightly different story of course, where the issues are:
- baggage overweight, which cues a lot of DYKWIA status pax to argue with them to waive the excess fees (which themselves take time to process)
- seat selection issues (e.g. being moved by the airline)
- last minute SPML requests at check-in
- travel document issues
- people taking up additional time trying to charm an upgrade
The problem is that these issues take even longer to resolve because most check-in staff not at the hub are outsourced agents who work for multiple airlines, who literally do not care at all if you travel with the airline or not.
You are correct...
5-10% of pax cause most problems. Of that 5-10% or so, most are amusing in their deluded sense of entitlement and can be sent away relatively easily, just disappointed! A minority are true DYKWIAs and are a PITA!
But certain airports/regions have their own problems... DXB does not really have this but certain outstations do...
- Drunk pax - in certain stations many pax go on all day drinking binges whilst awaiting check in to open. After being warned to calm down they persist in getting increasingly drunk and end up offloaded and then get aggressive. This can be up to 30 pax - I have offloaded 30 before - almost 10% of a full 777-300.
- Baggage quibblers - in many stations pax like to transport something in short supply. Often food, sometimes gadgets. Despite having paid upwards of $1000 for a plane ticket, these pax never have money for excess baggage and become irate at paying excess baggage fees. They also have a nasty habit of arriving at gate with a lot more luggage than they had at check in! This group can be 0-15%.
ETA - these tales don't necessarily apply to EK and may have occurred wholly/somewhat on other carriers... No tale should be assumed to have any link with EK whatsoever.