I think that at the entrance to most airports the air conditioning not only blasts hot air all over you but for many it seems to cause instantaneous dehydration of a large portion of their cerebral cortex. They are then rendered stupid as a result and and forget things such as needing to show their passport at check in and then of course have forgotten where they put it which wastes another 20 minutes.

The only place where I have seen people faff more than at check in is at the morons (sorry flight) connection centre.

The only time that it trully does take forever (ie 30 minutes plus) to check in is when you are trying to check in a passenger on a stretcher as 6 tickets have to be issued (one for each of the seats that get taken up) and then the computer system gets very confused as it looks as if the same person is in 6 seats (which would nornally not make any sense). BA does not take stretchers though these days (as they always cause huge flight delays). It also used to cost a fortune - the most expensive that I saw was £12,000 one way for a stretcher from JNB to LHR.

FD

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