snaxmuppet

At the end of the day I feel that we have the answers to my questions here. I was wrong in my understanding of the rules at HND but in my opinion I did not do anything wrong as my belief that I was right was based on genuine understanding of the rules and in no way involved DYKWIA behavior.

If anything, the situation was caused by the signs inadequately explaining that there was a difference to normal One World rules and what the differences are, combined with a person on the security lane that could hardly speak or understand English and so could not explain when challenged.

The rights and wrongs of that last point I save to discusses another day.

Thanks for putting me straight 😃

NickB

Yes and no. I hear what you say but you also have to take into account local behavioural expectation. Asking to speak to a supervisor is more or less a non issue in a US or UK context. It may be different in a culture which is uncomfortable with confrontation. Your asking to speak to the supervisor in that context is likely to have been perceived by the employee as much ruder than would be the case in a Western context.

justin_krusty

mikem004

The OP probably caused great embarrassment to the woman who was checking the BPs.
So she spoke "broken English" did she? How is the OP's Japanese, I wonder?

In Japan, "the stuck up nail gets hammered down". Best not to go against the flow.

DYKWIA

Bloody foreigners that can't speak English.

orbitmic

Apologies if I misunderstood what you meant by "except for the lack of matching requirement". If by that you meant that F wing is standard OW rules while HND is effectively multiple airlines (not just OW ones but also ANA in particular) but requiring elite tier in their own which can be top or mid level with both JL and ANA.

If so, to be honest, I don't think that "exactly the same except" is the clearest of wordings. The bottom line is that in the context of fast track models, F wing and HND fast track are about as far apart with the only obviously commonality is that F passengers are eligible for both. Beyond that in terms of FF benefits:

1) F wing is a) alliance specific, b) open to top tier members only from c) any of the alliance's FFPs regardless of the airline that they fly

2) HND fast track is a) airlines-wide, b) open to both top tier and mid tier members but c) only if the airline they fly and the FFP airline are exactly the same (e.g go BA FFP on JL flights regardless of tier, no JL FFP on BA flights regardless of tier, etc).

geerat

Unfortunately, I've had the same experience at Haneda flying economy as a BAEC gold member. Rules are very much rules in Japan (apart from red traffic signals for some reason) What I did was go straight from the North security to the South security. The man there looked at my boarding pass and said "Oh! First!" and let me through. A little further from the Sakura Lounge, but worth trying if there's a long line.

mario

The lady in question works for an international airline, in an international airport, with loads of non-Japanese foreigners.

I'm sure she didn't lose any sleep over this.

dsf

Oh how I have long wished for priority through obesity.

orbitmic

I think you may be missing the fact that the person may well have tried to explain things to you as much as she could when she kept repeating "British Airways" when you were referring to "JL silver". To be honest, I do not actually think that it is the job of security staff to explain the rules to passengers, just to enforce them, and if one feels unfairly treated, it is a lot more likely to carry some weight for you to go back to JL staff (typically at the check in counter) as they are the ones who are their to protect the rights of "their" customers and the ones who probably the language scheme and arguably the time to explain things. Security staff are just there to confirm that you are in the right place or not and in this case, I'm afraid that she did so competently.

I do take your point that any massive board aimed to deal with access for multiple airlines etc will never be a very simple thing to make sense of, but in fairness, several of us on this thread have understood it to mean exactly what the lady said, so personally, given the complexity of the situation at hand, I would not say that it is that confusing, nor are the OW instructions which again do not contradict the current situation.

As for the DYKWIA label, I personally find it generally unhelpful and do not use it in general except possibly in very extreme cases, and this is certainly not one of them at all. That said, I think the situation we are talking about is pretty much in line with the way most of the forum seems to use it (which definitely does not necessarily imply an aim to deceive/knowing that one is mistaken). Again, I don't think it is a helpful label despite its "entertainment value" so welcome to that line of argument if you agree too and I entirely sympathise, but if the case you are making is that yours is different from most of the cases people discuss in that infamous DYKWIA thread, I think that you will have a relatively hard time making that particular argument convincingly.

Finally, I would reiterate the issue of cultural sensitivity others have pointed out and which have been a bit dismissed so far. As others explained, your request to ask to speak to a supervisor will have been taken as a lot more aggressive than you undoubtedly intended to. What I want to add to their point, however, is that this is for good reason: in the Japanese context, if a customer wanted to speak to a supervisor to complain about a customer-facing staff member having been, effectively unprofessional or incompetent (which would very much be the interpretation had you been right and the person wrong), I have little doubt that this would have resulted in the person you were disagreeing with either feeling compelled to resign or being dismissed.

For whatever reason, the US, in particular, has developed a complaint escalation culture as a mode of negotiation. If you are unhappy with what a customer facing staff member tells you, you ask to speak to their manager in hope that they will overrule, make an exception, or whatever. Except in extreme cases, this is seen as a change for the customer to try and get (part or all of) what s/he wants and does not in any way come across as a process endangering the legitimacy or position of the initial interlocutor.

In a country like Japan, the rule is the rule, and the employee in charge is supposed to know the rules and enforce them. There is very close to zero leeway from that. As such, if you ask to speak to a supervisor, the implication is that you are considering your initial interlocutor as incompetent and incapable of doing their one job which is to know the rules and procedures and correctly enforce them. The consequence of you being right is that they have, in effect, failed and shamed their company and should consequently resign (and will most likely be summarily dismissed if they don't). This is quite a different type of stakes than whether you'll be getting a free upgrade in a hotel or something like that, and whilst I am 100% certain that you had no intention to had that lady fired, this is undoubtedly the way in which she will have understood your request, correctly in the Japanese context.

orbitmic

In fairness, given the cult for sumo in Japan, if anyone is ever going to bend fast track rules, it is likely to be for some famous yokozuna!

LTN Phobia

She would be an airport staff (the fast track security lane is not airline-operated, but operated by the airport). But I wouldn't expect a security staff or someone who is there to guard the lane to speak much English anywhere other than a predominantly English-speaking country.

snaxmuppet

Do know what... I am gobsmacked at the lack of support I have had in this thread. Given the BA marketing for BAEC and even on this forum there is no suggestion that I can find that there is anything other than Fast-track security offered as per normal or not offered. I know that at some airports there is no fast track at all and if it is not available then I cannot get it. But I have seen nowhere that there can be variations of the normal like at HND.

BA says...
There is no asterisk or note to suggest that it is any different to normal if it is offered. I have searched and cannot find where it says that there are variatios such as at HND so is it not reasonable to assume that if it is offered then it is as per normal? I have taken the comments here and tried to see it from your perspective and I keep coming back to the fact that nothing anywhere suggests that it should be any different.

Even this guide and wiki says "Security: yes" with no mention that it is any different to normal...
Tracking BA Fast Track and Priority Boarding

I believe I am being unfairly and incorrectly admonished and criticised when I feel that my expectations were reasonable given the information available. Even their board did not explain the departure from normal One World procedures.

As for me breaching Japanese culture... this is a large international airport. You can't expect me to read up on all the local customs each time I transit an airport. I was there for one night and didn't leave the airport. I think you are being wholly unreasonable to expect me to do that. If I somehow insulted the agent then I regret that but they should accept that people won't know any better and be able to handle it. She should have been able to handle it better than just saying "British Airways" or got someone else who could.

The fact that the One World Alliance has these anomalies is disconcerting... how many more undocumented "gotchas" are there I wonder. It seems you get Priority check-in... except when you don't, you get priority security... except when you don't, you get priority boarding... except where you don't and you get lounge access... except where you don't. All this would be fine if the exceptions were documented and actually applied.

I thank you all for your opinions and you are entitled to them but I don't agree with many of them and yes, I do feel upset that I have been brandished as some kind of villain when all I was doing was expecting to get my normal Silver benefits as per all the documentation I have seen. At least my question has been properly answered and I have been educated in the One World ways, Japanese culture and how to become a DYKWIA by simply asking for what I believed I should get.

Perhaps I should stop asking these kinds of questions altogether if this is the response. I do not deserve to get the DYKWIA label and I totally reject it as it is not true... never has been... never will be.

Enough said on this thread by me I think.

TomMM

OP: How long was the "normal" line compared to the "Priority" line?

CCayley