He's had a change of heart lately - but only in the name of profits!

Whereas before he said: "On customer service: "People say the customer is always right, but you know what - they're not. Sometimes they are wrong and they need to be told so."

He now says: "“If I’d only known that being nice to customers was going to be so good for my business I would have done it years ago,” the Irish executive said in an interview this month."

That said, in this case, EK were being nice to the pax and look where it got them...no good deed goes unpunished...

Allowing short checking as a rule will cost EK more in lost revenue from people dropping final sectors than they can pick up from the OP - who, if he wanted to be absolutely sure, could have just purchased two separate tickets - especially as cost is a factor in the purchasing decision.