mandolino

You know the scene:
You're an experienced traveller. You seldom spend more than 60 seconds at the check-in desk, no matter how complicated your itinerary. Yet the person in front of you is taking ten minutes and still no sign of moving.

What are they doing? I've never been able to figure it out.

Doc Savage

And how do they know to do it only if you are running a bit late anyway?

rochel

I think this all of the time, in so many situations... bank, post office, grocery store, airport, self-serve ticket kiosk at movie theatre. What ARE they doing? And why do I always get behind the lowest skill person, or the person with the most difficulties to resolve....

mandolino

And why don't staff move the 10-minute people to one side and deal with a bunch of 30-second people first?

pinniped

It's been a few years since I've needed to talk to an airline counter agent for more than 60 seconds, but my scenario from 2009 or so was this, all at once with a United agent at the airport:

- Buying two MCI-MUC tickets as two separate PNR's
- Applying credit from a prior canceled itin
- Using VDB vouchers
- Using a separate coupon that came as a result of a mechanical delay on a prior flight
- Applying SWU's to both itins (I had confirmed all flights had W+NC availability before driving up there)
- Confirming seat assignments on all segments

There were two or three issues that forced me to go to the airport to do this: I want to say it was both the MX coupon and the fact that I couldn't get the website to price a W fare to use the SWU's. (It wanted to sell me a slightly cheaper but not upgradeable fare.) The old-style VDB coupons may have required an in-person payment as well.

The counter agent had to spend a solid half hour on the phone with a helpdesk to get everything ticketed right. In the end, she waived a $150 change fee associated with the prior canceled itin. (I was 1K and they still treated 1K's halfway decent back then.)

I purposely timed my visit to the airport to coincide with the last counter check-ins of the night. I wanted to avoid a queue for myself as well as avoid holding others up for this processing. Not that I expected it to take 30 minutes, but I knew it'd take 10 or more...

Looking back over the past 15-20 years, I'd say most of my "complicated" interactions with counter agents are either irrops or using some sort of unusual voucher or coupon.

Rebelyell

Same thing with Redbox.

I figured out at a young age that amusement parks seemed to last forever, except when I was on board the ride. Then they ended quickly.

Jasper2009

I would describe myself as an experienced frequent flyer and the >10min check-in experience still happens to me every now and then.

I´d say that the reason for the long proccessing time usually is a result of:

1) someone screwing up the ticket and/or irrops (e.g. irrops with airline A, airline A rebooks me on airline B, but agent didn´t release/endorse the ticket properly etc.)
2) agents being clueless, particularly when it comes to FF status benefits (e.g. "I would like to do a same-day change" "Ok, that will be $100" "Actually, the change should be free due to my status/particular booking class etc." "Hm, don´t think so, but let me double-check...")
3) anything that needs permission from a supervisor (e.g. arrive at the airport, flight is already delayed 4h, but agent isn´t empowered to rebook me on another flight leaving in 1h)

carbacca

when they need to check my wifes chinese passport to see if she is allowed into HK as a transit,when she doesnt have an "onward ticket" as she will be crossing the border on foot.....

emma69

The ones that normally take me the longest is when I ask for my next boarding pass for a connecting flight and ask for my bags to be checked through. I may also ask them to confirm my special meal has been ordered, and if there is an emergency exit / bulkhead seat available.

gj83

I had a flight cancelled last week on Delta. They usually auto-rebook very quickly, but nothing was showing up so I went to the sky club next to the gate. It took 20 minutes to confirm me on the next itinerary. This was the C club in ATL where the only agents are the check-in agents so while they were rebooking 8 people on my flight the line to enter the club kept building.

After they finished 1 they tried to handle everyone who just needed to check in, but after they were all done and they started on the next person the line would build up again.

tjl

The flight is overbooked, so they want to ensure that enough people are late to the check in desk so that they can be denied boarding to make the flight not overbooked?

If you are not able to check in on-line, or need to check bags when there is no separate bag drop, be aware that the check in line can be a source of significant unpredictable delay which can cause you to miss the check in deadline.

It is likely that the people at the check in counter are the ones with problems or complex situations preventing them from on-line or kiosk check in, or are novice travelers who will take more time. So there may not be a lot of 30 second people in the line to the check in counter.

eturowski

I got stuck at the check-in counter at LAX last weekend.

I got a message on the Delta app saying that I was unable to complete web check-in and had to see an agent at the airport. No biggie, figured I was SSSSed or some other flag because it was a positioning flight after an international itinerary.

I get to the counter. The agent is unable to load my reservation - "Please check ticket date." I kind of freaked out, thinking I had mistakenly booked my ticket for the wrong date in light of the crazy travel I had just finished (BOB-PPT-LAX over the span of about 18 hours).

However, the agent (after about 15 minutes of talking with colleagues and supervisors, plus someone on the phone) finally found out that when I had requested a mileage upgrade some 3 months ago, the phone agent never re-ticketed me into FC. I had a reservation and a PNR, but no FC ticket.

He re-issued the ticket, and I was good to go. (That is, until I realized I had left my passport at the check-in counter... once I was already past security and in another terminal waiting for my husband to find out if he cleared standby on another airline.)

jsmeeker

about 10 years ago, I went to Hawaii for a cruise. To fly there, I went on AA out of LAX. The whole trip, including the flights, was booked about 5 weeks in advance, via a travel agent. I didn't actually handle the bookings. My friend/traveling companion did. Bought coach seats. Tried to use miles to upgrade, but were only able to get upgrades on the return. But I put in for "sticker" upgrades on the outbound.

Get to the airport to checkin. They typed and typed. and typed and typed away. I swear, we were probably at the ticket counter for like 15-20 minutes. They really didn't say what was going on. But they said there wasn't a problem. When it was all said and done, they handed us first class boarding passes. And then a receipt to indicated they had refunded some of the money we had paid for the ticket.

Never knew exactly what happened. THey didn't explain it at all. But I didn't care. I was in F, and I got money back! After I got back, I asked about it over at the AA forum. Best guess is that the travel agent booked us in some coach fare bucket that allowed for changes. When the day of travel came, I suppose that there were F seats still for sale for less than what I had paid for Y. So, they re-ticketed to take advantage and gave me the difference. At the time, I was just Platinum. And AAirpass. (but wasn't flying on an AAirpass ticket)

SeriouslyLost

If it's me that's holding you up then it's QF and they've changed my flight again and are trying to send me to an entirely different city and I'm refusing to let them drop me in the ...... seat they want me to take and also insisting they either give me the seat I paid for or bump me up a class seeing as they're the ones that are screwing with my destination city and consequent connecting flights. That routine (last two times I've flown QF come to think of it) takes ~30 minutes to get them to perform. Sorry.

alanR

They always seem to be shocked that they have to pay for things - so they then have to rummage in the bottom of their handbag and will insist on finding the EXACT money.

It's probably the same people who get to the top of an escalator then stand there looking confused.