fisherofsouls

I was at AMS the other week waiting for the short hop to LGW.

Having spent several hours that day sitting on my behind in the most tedious meeting ever, I go and stand at the front of Fast Track about 15 mins before the start of boarding (I'm only in the queue because I have an exit row seat and this flight is always a nightmare for locker space so I use my Silver status to get on ahead of the throng).

Almost immediately, a smartly-dressed 20-something woman appears on my left, parks her trolley case in FRONT of me, and then walks off to a row of seats about 10 feet away. Okaaaay... good thing I didn't drink too much coffee today - just let it go with a roll of the eyes and a shake of the head

Anyway, boarding is called and the woman reappears, walks straight past me as if I'm invisible, collects trolley case and sails ahead... only to be stopped by the gate agent and sent to the other queue.

Then it gets really weird:

I board, put my bag up and settle into 11A (or wherever). Several minutes (and scores of pax) later, Miss Pushy arrives and has 11B. Of course, by now, there is no space for her magic place-saving bag. So she proceeds to barge her way forward and put it in a CE locker above 3D !!!

On landing at LGW, she calmly walks forwards, retrieves her bag and walzes off up the airbridge.

I'm guessing she was Blue (or nothing) with a serious wannabe complex

Mattyb44

At CPH the other day, and pre boarding was called. CE and Gold card holders to board first (no silver or bronze for some reason). A gentleman had obviously not heard the GCH part as he was attempting to push past from the back of the lounge, asking everyone ahead of himself if they were in CE, and quite loudly mumbling that all of these people could not be in the first 5 rows of the plane! Not quite DYKWIA but humorous to stand back and watch how desperate some people can be when they believe they have a god forsaken right to board first!

nobbyclark

Don't know why CE passengers are so desperate to get on the plane first at CPH. It's us poor $ods in ET that have to fight for the limited overhead space.

LTN Phobia

Because some ET passengers do a dump and run in the CE lockers, filling them up. It's not worth the risk of that happening, as it happens quite a bit.

I saw 3 ET passengers do it on one of my flights yesterday. It was not an issue as the CE was quite quiet but it could have been a nuisance.

Sharratt4

I am always tempted to wait until the curtain is closed and move said ET pax bags to the opposite side bins a few rows forwards or backwards then wait for the panicked look on their faces when they go to collect it on disembarkation and cant find it.

But then I think life is too short!

HighLife

I don't worry about this.

If I board late and people have shoved stuff in making totally inefficient use of the available space (through no fault of their own necessarily, as the obvious place to start is above one's seat), then I will move people's stuff around carefully in order to make space for my item.

I am not going to hold everybody up behind me and start asking the permission of several people who may or may not be the owners of the bags / hats / coats in question

Similarly, if I board first, then I am quite happy for other people to move my stuff around if they have to make space for their own.

It's public transport for pity's sake. If you don't want my (or the cabin crew's hands) on your stuff, then fly private!

chessers1

----

This happens on virtually every flight from Dubai to LHR.

There is always one or more that seem totally oblivious to the 'queue' waiting at the Fast Track lane.

That is of course if they actually wait for Fast Track to be called, usually they try and walk through whilst families, infants and pushchairs are struggling to board.

Never ceases to amuse.

jp-mco

This happened last week on the flight from DXB to LHR. We were waiting in the FastTrack area (we were travelling in First) and they announced pre-boarding for families with infants etc and two local teenage girls (both about 18/19 who'd spent the last 20 minutes taking hundreds of selfies) jumped and went to board. The gate agent didn't try to stop them but then that's probably because of the social hierarchy in the UAE and they felt they couldn't. It might be better if they handed out pre-boarding cards when they enter the gate area. Anybody not in possession of a card should be turned away.

On a separate but related point, I'm always surprised that people don't seem to understand the difference between pre-boarding and FastTrack.

chessers1

You were lucky it was just the two.....

It's generally expats who are doing the queue jumping as the locals usually jump on the EK flights. Policing of the fast track queue is a bit hit or miss to say the least.

Agree on the pre-boarding aspect, sure some people just see people boarding and conclude the flight is open.

I've been bumped into several times over the years whilst waiting in the queue with a comment such as 'Excuse me, I'm in business'.

Just let them get on with it!

xenole

Seems to me that just about everyone here is quite happy to sit back and let people queue jump, move their bags etc. It's therefore unsurprising that people do it knowing there is no comeback in most cases.

Paralytic

I always wonder, what would Henkybaby do in situations like this, where people barge past you in the fastrack queue...

HighLife

There's a big difference between these two things, I think.

chessers1

I generally cannot be bothered to argue as it really makes no difference to me whether or not I get on third or twenty third. So yes, they get away with it.

However one thing that annoys me even more, is when waiting for luggage at DXB you cannot leave an inch between you and the carousel.

If you do, someone wedges themselves in the gap and stands right in front of you. They now get very gently eased out the way

Polomarc

At CPH a pax jumped in front of me telling security he was running late for a flight. Turns out it we were on the same flight and there was plenty of time until gate closed.

Calchas

Some people think that "late" means "less than two hours before departure".