<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by Worldtraveler36:
Always use skycap if possible. I didn't quite understand why you didn't use skycap in the first place!? Many of them now print you out a boarding pass, and you're done. Give them a big tip, and you know what!?, they've earned it.
Next time, skycap, then go to the club, buy a day's membership if need be, and go from there.
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Michael, maybe you missed the part where Satellite Parking mentioned that this happened in El Paso, Texas. Quite likely there is no AA curbside checkin at such a small airport and I'm pretty sure there aren't any airline clubs. ELP ain't LAX
At least I hope he didn't stand in the no-status line for 55 minutes if he could have checked the bag right outside.
With our system currently encouraging Mr. & Mrs. Rarely Fly to arrive hours before their flight ("Well, if two hours is good, then four hours must be better," they have been heard to say), the real answer is to never allow 100 people to beat you to the checkin line for an early morning flight like this one.
Eat or be eaten.
Get up earlier, get to the airport earlier, and make sure that some of those 100 people are behind you, not ahead of you. They don't make their flight, too bad. Not your problem.
Arriving at the airport 67 minutes before boarding was to begin was the error that day.
Checking in latecomers ahead of those who followed the rules wasn't the real problem. Aggrevating as hell, yes. I would have been livid, too. The cause of Satellite Parking not making the gate at the proper time? Not from the info he provided (13 minutes of improper behavior reward/correctly checking in earlier departing flight, depending on one's perspective).
Had Satellite beaten two or three more people to the no-status line that morning, he wouldn't have witnessed the agents' rewarding of latecomers. Instead, he would have been in the ridiculously long security line.
If you're flying on an airline where you don't have status, you might as well be Mr. Rarely Fly, and you should plan accordingly. Remember, even once you have status on AA, this is a problem whenever you're flying Eagle - I've never seen an Eagle First Class checkin position. Long lines abound, all at the wrong times.