Hi folks

Just wanted your opinions on this. My collegue and I were checking in at Birmingham Airport this weekend just gone. There not a friendly bunch to be honest. Anyway we went to check in using the Sky Priority lane, as I have Elite Plus status. I handed over the passports and she began checking us in. However when I asked if she could put on priority tags on my collegues bag she refused!!! Eventhough we were travelling together!! As a joke i said "well Im not going to be happy if I have to wait for her luggage on the otherside!". I was told by the check in girl "well they make no difference! They get loaded into the plane in shape and weight order!"

I just thought how rude!! I understand if I was talking a group of people but to refuse a fellow collegue a priority tag. She then rudely advised me the lounge was open for me only!! When I told her I could take a guest in being a Elite Plus. I was advised no!! Until her collegue jumped in and said I could!!!

So opinions....

The problem that happens with many airlines is that staff working at outstations typically work for several airlines and do not always know the rules properly. It happens quite regularly to me that I have to friendly point out some rules to check-in agents.
In my experience it is always helpful not to expect too much and point out the mistakes in a nice way. In the end it is good to keep in mind that the staff at oustations might not yet have received full training and that they are not in an easy situation, given that there are so many airlines with so many different rules involved.

Why wouldn't they? Its not like KLM has just started flying from there. And even then, isn't it KLM's responsibility to make sure the personnel they contract knows what they are doing?

It can always happen that due to unforeseen staff shortage someone else has to jump in who normally does not deal with KL flights. That's why.

Additionally, check-in jobs are (at least in the UK) learned by training on the job, so it can always happen that you deal with someone who has not had much experience yet.

Independent of this, in this job you have to know a lot about the different FFPs of all relevant airlines, including loosely affiliated airlines. On top of this loads of different baggage rules, maybe upgrade rules and loads of operational procedures, too, etc. And now imagine you have to know this for say 5 airlines that you regularly do the check-in for. It's easy to get confused with all this. And all this in a job where you receive just a couple of weeks of training and people do typically not have a tertiary education.

A good friend of mine once had this job at LCY, and, believe me, getting to terms with all these rules is not easy for the staff members involved. In particular as the world of frequent flyers is in no way related to their personal experience. (Otherwise they would have a different job.)

Finally, I am sure that KL has a quality assurance program for outstations. But I am also sure that it is very difficult for any airline to be in control of the details of what happens at dozens of outstations.

Of course, I am not writing this to justify rude behaviour or incompetence. But I find it important that we as privileged frequent flyers occassionally put ourselves in the shoes of the staff members that we happen to deal with during our travel. Given their particular "way of life" and the societal setting they live in, which includes comparably low salaries and high rents in the UK, their lives do essentially not revolve around us, even if we might be tempted to assume so and airlines try to make us believe so. And this is absolutely ok as long as they do their job properly enough to justify their (quite low) salaries. "Doing their job properly" means that there is also room for making mistakes. And I hope to have shown that, given the particular setting of staff at outstations, mistakes can happen more easily than also these staff member would wish for.

Next time, suggest you check "your" two bags (yours and your friend's).
Worked like a charm last week in CTA on Alitalia. We all did OLCI so there was no need for anyone else to go to the counter... just me with both bags.

It depends on how well you know the colleague or friend. I wouldn't be comfortable crossing a boarder with someone else's bag tagged as mine.

Agree. In our case, they were our good travel buds so I wasn't concerned.

If security people asked you

• Did you pack the bags yourself or someone else did?
• Does everything in the bags belong to you?

you will have to lie or be subjected to additional screening.

Do they still ask those questions? Haven't heard that in years.
This was a domestic Italian flight from a smaller airport and the Alitalia agent didn't seem to care. And as for "security", the woman watching the security line TV monitor seemed more concerned about doing her nails.

In some airports they do.

It's mostly for international flights to the USA on USA carriers.