Originally Posted by
Lefly
I'm no Brit and I'm not older generation (more middle), but if there is a queue everyone should respect it.
Still have to happen on BA or OW, but I had a DYKWIA moment encounter while waiting in line at the Business Desk Check-in for SN. There was a bit of a queue that was turning around a corner, and there was a SN ground agent policing it. A middle age man tried to move beside the line (aka skipping it) and was stopped and directed to the queue's end by the agent. My husband, that was closer, then heard this classic, half-outraged half-dumbfounded, reply: "
Mais je suis Sénateur!"
It didn't work
If this was at BRU, it must be something about the airport that attracts them. My last BD redemption was BRU-FRA on LH followed by FRA-SIN-SYD in SQ Business (then TG F home). Brussels had been hit by snow the night before and LH cancelled everything out of the airport. Like all good FTers, we went to the airport early in the morning to sort it out knowing there was little chance of getting any support from LH or BA as the now ticketing agent on the phone.
There was utter chaos when we arrived with just two overwhelmed booking agents trying to take care of hundreds and hundreds of displaced passengers, many doubtless with complicated itineraries. The Star Gold priority line had understandably been abandoned in favour of getting as many people through as possible in the shortest possible time. We joined the end of what was already a very long queue, eventually reaching the desk about 90 minutes later.
We began to discuss our options, knowing we now had no chance of making the original SQ flight from FRA with the only option a four hour train journey. The agent typed, and typed, and typed, desperately trying to find two J seats to SYD.
In the middle of this a LH Senator strode up to the desk and loudly proclaimed his status meant he should jump the queue and be seen immediately. The agent ignored him and continued dealing with us, so he tried again. And again. And again. I’d had enough and pointedly told him we were also Star Gold, travelling in Business, had been queuing for 90 minutes as had everyone else and instructed him as to where he’d find the end of the queue.
He stopped complaining but still stood there. The agent eventually persisted and found us a BA coded, QF flight from FRA-SIN in J (see, there’s some BA relevance here!), we thanked her profusely and turned away - at which point Mr Senator tried to jump in. The people next in the queue, plus the agent, were having none of this though and refused to let him be served - and he finally got the message and scuttled off to the back of a queue that was by now far longer than it was at his arrival time.
We lost our day in Singapore, but in recompense got an upper deck seat on the 747, coupled with a fabulous QF crew who’d worked out our situation from the PNR notes and treated us wonderfully - and of course we were now in a revenue bucket so double dipped for Avios and TPs.
I like to think, in my mind, that Mr Senator slept on the airport floor for two days and ended up on Uzbekistan Airways ...