We flew out on that flight a couple of weeks ago. The guy in front of me was GE and told me that the elite line was empty when he was approaching so the Groundstar agent called over the next in line from the other check-in queue. This happened to be an extended family of 8 with mountains of luggage, a pushchair and various clobber associated with small children. It seemed that checking in came as a surprise to them as tickets etc. were distributed among the adults in the package. In the meantime the pax in the other queue actually moved ahead of us in the time it took to check this family in.

When I commented that I thought this particular check-in was for Elite pax I was told that it also doubled as a normal check-in if there were no Elite pax waitng to check-in. By the time we completed the process both queues were quite long and there had obviously been a mass migration from the other check-in into this one.

I don't blame them really when you are in a queue of 20 next to queue of 3. The problem is an organisational one but readily solvable. eg Establish the tape maze with large signage as at some other airports.Import a couple of dragons from you know where, or as it is NCL, just a big geordie lass in a pinny and rollers..

(I would solve it by sending the first non-elite pax to try it, to the back of the other queue but then as ex-military and a teacher I would wouldn't I.)

Exraf