Premium passengers using economy check in

[jetpack]

I recently checked in for a QF flight to Australia. I wasn't surprised to see that only one check in counter was allocated to business and around five to economy. There was however the same amount of people in the business and economy queues so there must have been a few passengers with status. Anyway, it took about ten seconds to work out that the economy queue was moving much faster. The business one wasn't moving at all. The passenger already at the counter must be having an issue and holding up everyone else. I decided to move across to the economy queue and sure enough by the time I collected my boarding pass the business queue still hadn't moved. What surprised me though was that most people in the business queue preferred to stick it out and wait even though there was almost no wait in the economy queue. What would you normally do in this situation?

 

[RooFlyer]

What would you normally do in this situation?

Definitely move across - as I do frequently in security queues where all the status sheep line up and the 'non status' lines are much shorter, and in the Qantas boarding queues, as they often don't do 'priority boarding' and the priority queue is longer.

At Calgary, Air Canada always had one check-in for business/status and multiple for economy. Same deal - business queue much slower than the other one (always someone trying to get a better seat, or change onwards flights etc). What made it doubly annoying is that when the economy agents were free, they never called business customers across. They just sat there, chatting amongst themselves.

Eventually I just automatically joined the economy queue if i got to the airport early.

 

[Pushka]

Observe which is moving the fastest, number of people waiting and move to the quickest regardless of status.

 

[Matt_01]

I am exactly the same as @RooFlyer @Pushka which ever line is the shortest be it check in, security or boarding.

 

[kookaburra75]

Ditto - although I'll caveat that with a lot of the time, like the supermarket, when I change queues it always goes slower than the one that I just left

 

[JohnK]

I would move to the fastest moving queue but at the time of my move that queue has become the slowest moving queue so I just stay put and not waste energy moving queues.

 

[wannabeinvestmentbanker]

The airline should wave over the premium queue first to a couple of the nearby counters and trickle the economy pax. That may be too logical for some airlines so if you see economy gets waved over and premium ignored make the switch.

I would just actively make sure the bags get tagged correctly and any other paraphernalia handed out (i.e. fast track/lounge passes) as those reps would likely not often be accustomed to the premium pax extras.

 

[Dr Ralph]

Stay in the business line. I base this on my experience with supermarket queues. Every time I think another line looks shorter and is moving more quickly and I decided to move 90% of the time it ends up taking longer to get through than if I hadn't moved in the first place!

 

[andye]

Stereotype. It's faster

 

[fifo]

Isn't the deal the first free economy server is supposed to take any free premium line customers over economy customers?
I've see this in a few places, made me think it was standard for some reason.

 

[eddie 73]

My observations on queue speeds is that status pax tend to mostly use app phone qr bp’s, as opposed to non-status casual flyers armed mostly with trusty old paper bp’s, which are sooo much faster.

Ahh, the good old days lol.

 

[fifo]

I stoppes using anything electronic for boarding after a couple of times I had issues, reception faded, phone problem and last off...qf call center arguing the online bp wasnt enough for SC credit (when it didnt credit properly).

 

[wannabeinvestmentbanker]

My observations on queue speeds is that status pax tend to mostly use app phone qr bp’s, as opposed to non-status casual flyers armed mostly with trusty old paper bp’s, which are sooo much faster.

Ahh, the good old days lol.

I understand it's better for the environment but from an efficiency perspective it has to slow down the boarding time on balance. It's usually my primary motivation for going normal boarding queue on a syd mel where the lines are equivalent.

 

[RooFlyer]

Yep, paper beats electronic for 'getting things done, faster', most times.

 

[Spongbob]

I have observed on a few occasions at SYD a longish queue for J checkin counters and nobody in the PE queue. I simply move to the PE counter to be processed much faster than those still waiting for the J checkin counters.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

This happened to me last time at MEL. Huge queues for business class - stretching back to the door (international). Economy also packed

Isn't the deal the first free economy server is supposed to take any free premium line customers over economy customers?
I've see this in a few places, made me think it was standard for some reason.

It's often common for a higher class-of-service counter to call pax over from a lower line (business check-in to call across economy one at a time, or first to call across business), but I haven't generally seen it work the other way. And I can understand this... economy pax waiting in line for 30-40 minutes might not appreciate being made to wait even longer (and potentially risk losing a passenger due to the bad expereince).

 

[andye]

This happened to me last time at MEL. Huge queues for business class - stretching back to the door (international). Economy also packed


It's often common for a higher class-of-service counter to call pax over from a lower line (business check-in to call across economy one at a time, or first to call across business), but I haven't generally seen it work the other way. And I can understand this... economy pax waiting in line for 30-40 minutes might not appreciate being made to wait even longer (and potentially risk losing a passenger due to the bad expereince).

I've seen VA do this in both 'directions' in domestic and international settings

 

[MEL_Traveller]

I've seen VA do this in both 'directions' in domestic and international settings

Well if I was a VA economy passenger - in fact an economy passenger on any airline and this happened I would be slightly cheesed And it would make me consider using that airline again.

 

[eddie 73]

Group boarding system used by AAin the US is by far my favourite way to board a plane. Policed properly, it works a treatfor higher tier pax. Wish QF adopted this system.

 

[straitman]

Group boarding system used by AAin the US is by far my favourite way to board a plane. Policed properly, it works a treatfor higher tier pax. Wish QF adopted this system.

I wish Qantas would adopt any working system and stick to it!