Check-in etiquette: queue-jumping?
 

(apologies if you've just read this in the BA forum!)

While checking-in in Sydney recently, I had what some of you might term "quite an experience":

It quite busy, being school holidays and around 8:30am. I had finally reached the head of the Qantas Club check-in queue. No flights had been called.

A desperate-looking woman clutching a baby walks up to me and asks if she can go ahead of me because her flight is leaving. Feeling in no particular hurry, having left plenty of time to make my flight, I aquiesced.

Then suddenly out of nowhere appears her *husband*, two large suitcases and *his golf clubs*.

They then march up to the counter and spend the next five minutes arguing with the poor checkin person about their seats.

I was pretty miffed. I can't imagine what the people behind me in the queue were thinking... I dared not look back!

Am I the only one who has ever fallen for this sort of sucker-punch?

I think next time this happens I'm likely to retort with "Sorry you should have left for the airport earlier" - but what kind of schmuck would that make me?

Just search on the BA forum under "DYKWIA" ;)

Given that QF offers a desk specifically to deal with flights closing soon, I would point her towards that desk to deal with the flight; that way , if she is genuine, she gets checked plus can be done without you feeling like a shmuck

Dave

I hear you. I was at LAX, checking in, and overheard a guy behind me saying how soon his flight was leaving, and he didn't think he was going to make it.

Out of some (misplaced?) goodness, I actually offered for him to go go ahead.
So (collecting his girlfriend who had suddenly appeared from nowhere), he proceeds to take an age to check in.

Then I get to the gate, only to find him and his girlfriend are on *the same flight as me*

I have fallen for "the old wheel chair trick".

Checking in for UA at FCO, the guy infront (who has walked to the counter dragging his wheelie bags) asks me if I "can do him a favour" and lift his bags onto the scales. I say "sorry, but I have a bad back" (I don't). His wife quite capably lifts them on the scales for him. They check in then easily walk away.

2 hrs later at the gate lounge, the same guy with wife are arguing with the lounge staff about a wheel chair. He eventually is plonked into one and put on the plane first.

At IAD, we are facing a 75 minute queue to get to Immigration (and the poor buggers who endured the back of the plane looked like getting about double that time in line :eek:). No sooner that we have settled into our 75 min ordeal in the queue, but "Mr wheel chair" is wheeled to the front of the line, processed then pushed through to freedom. I'm sure I saw him get out of the chair as soon as he was clear of the immigration desks.

I just wonder how often he played that game. If he had a genuine need for the chair, it was not obvious to me or everyone else. It looked like a classic con trick (but I might be wrong).

Presumably though it cost him an extra $50 in passenger fees at either end, for hiring the wheelchair etc?

What you gonna do? /sopranos/

They were important enough to have golf clubs with them and you were not. So this is a pretty clear case for me. :rolleyes:

I've never understood the "wheelchair-queue jumping" thing. Assuming it's genuine, the person is sitting down in a wheel chair - so what's the problem with waiting - the rest of us are on our feet for the same period of waiting?

Depends on whether it is a member of Airline staff which is wheeling the chair

Dave

i've seen the wheelchair trick used at a few gigs this year... guy manages to get down the front of the venue close to the band, everyone happy to make room for him. soon as the band starts he is up on his feet, leaving behind a rogue wheelchair for everyone to fall over. he then did the same to get to the front of the bar and get a round of beers. after seeing this at several gigs i was not amused...

How sad; I even seem to recall someone on this forum quite proud of using a wheelchair and pretending to be disabled/injured when checking in for flights

Dave

Kneecap the ....... - then he'll be genuine in the use of his wheelchair.

I wouldn't have fallen for the original scam - my response would have been pretty much as suggested:

"Well, next time you'll get your arse to the airport on time - right?" or similar.

I'd rank queue-jumpers down there with beggars - I never fail to give those moochers a serve when the opportunity arises.

Or when I go looking for it...

At Heathrow Gatwick, you often see people squezzing past the security queue. I quite often say "what time does your flight leave" - inevitably it's after mine, and half the people in the line. I tell them to get to the back of the line.