testman

I'd like to know if anyone travelling from Poznań (POZ) with LOT, SAS or Lufthansa has been able to use the Fast Track.
Both LOT and Star Alliance say we can use the Fast Track. And the airport claims that Star Alliance GOLD can even take +1 with them.

I tried to use it last Sunday, but the gate was closed. I asked another airport employee and I was told that "that girl must have gone somewhere".
And I've just received a reply from the airport on Facebook. The message says that "it must have been a temporary break in the presence of the employee", which doesn't make much sense even in Polish.

marcoos

The message is in corporate newspeak, but it is pretty understandable: fast track is usually there, but the employee handling it was temporarily absent.

It happens. I was once forced to stand in the non-fast-track queue in Frankfurt, but didn't feel like starting threads on FT about that.

Raul_R

Last week POZ Fast track did work perfect!

worldclubber

Haven’t been to POZ for a few months, but the last time I was there, it worked perfectly fine. SEN flying LH to MUC.

testman

Thanks Raul_P and worldclubber. Good to hear it works perfectly, at least when the employee isn't having "a temporary break in her presence"
Must have been bad luck.

worldclubber

Yeah, you were probably be just unlucky. Try again!

testman

Thank you for taking your time to reply to my post even though you didn't answer my original query...

marcoos

Oh, so you want a super literal answer? No, I only ever landed at POZ once, but never took off from there, so, no, I couldn’t use the fast track.

On a serious note, you got an actual answer from the airport employees, twice even. Yes, there is fast track. You happened to come at a time that it temporarily/incidentally wasn’t in operation due to understaffing. What more do you want here, really?

Fabo.sk

Well to be fair, getting an idea of whether this "temporary incident" happens to everyone always, or it really is bad luck is a decent enough point.

jackebofh

Fast Track at POZnań is a joke since forever. If you look carefully at the security setup there, they have a dedicated line, with signage and everything, but it is NEVER used. I haven't seen it open ever, and i'm a regular.

Their latest idea of fast track is a girl that ask you for your physical Star Alliance Gold card or printed business class ticket and then leads you to the beginning of the general queue, pushing all the people back and placing you first in line. It's very awkward, confusing and uncomfortable. Just one of the POZnań things...

MichalB

Oh yes. Fast Track in Poznan is a travesty (as many other things there). This is my regular departure airport, I do not use other regional airports in PL, I probably got already habituated, but still I think things are not right there. Yes, there is a separate entry with a boarding card scanner. The scanner does not work (not connected or not switched on). So there is a girl coming (or not). The girl asks you for your boarding card and/or Gold card. Then the girl gets you to the front of normal queue. Then the general public thinks you are there only because you are an acquaintance or protegee of the girl and you should not be there at all. And they are quite vocal about it. To you, because the girl is not there anymore. So, I try to avoid Fast Track unless absolutely necessary (and the security queue is longer than 10 minutes). The other part of the story is the security staff. Not only soft skills are missing, but also basics. Fairly rude, no English whatsoever, poor approach to their work. I try to ignore them with as much stoicism as I only can (I will fly soon and they will stay there for hours) but in fairness they are all fit to be fired (or at least retrained).

yurtripper

Came here to post exactly this but you beat me to it. For the evening return flights to WAW that I tend to get, the time to clear security is usually small enough that fast track would hardly matter in any case.

yurtripper

Word! The lounge is crappy also. Nothing that actually resembles food, just junky beer snacks. Like the worst kind of PP lounge and a depressing place to hang out (but still better than being stuck in the waiting areas by the gates). Last time I offered to guest someone in that I'd been chatting to beforehand - when he saw the lounge he said "No thanks" and went straight back to the waiting area!

The saving grace of POZ is how easy it is to get to/from the city centre. If you're staying at Sheraton you literally walk out of the door and across the pedestrian crossing and you're at the airport bus stop. Uber is cheap and quick also (I tend to use Uber on arrival and the bus for getting back).

hugolover

I have noticed that since a few days, maybe a week or so, but definitely not longer than 18 days, that Gold Track seems to have stopped on LOT. It's only working at WAW.

My data points are WRO, POZ, KRK, FRA, LHR and ARN. In all cases, flying Y, my BP was not encoded with Fast Track and the airport printed/online printed BP did not have Fast Track. I noticed at LHR they took down the Gold Track signs for F/C/Gold.

Within four days of flying from KRK, Fast Track no longer was shown on the BP between Nov 29 and Dec 02.

Gold track is no longer listed for LHR, I am not sure if ARN ever was https://www.staralliance.com/en/gold-track FRA, POZ, WRO, KRK, WAW remain.

Yet, only WAW is working.

I will contact with the Polish airports and ask them if LOT have stop paying, or something else is going on, perhaps its suspended due to the pandemic because so many are shut anyway?

I should add that the LH issued KRK BP from yesterday has Fast Track encoding perhaps really showing LOT have stopped it? I can't believe they actually paid for the likes of KRK, WRO, that's the thing I don't understand.

hugolover

They have fixed this! Fast track now shows. I remain 100% sure that it was not working for a short period.

The cynic in me says they had some kind of issue with the new Star Alliance 26 airlines banner on the BP that appeared on 01 DEC.