To think people jumping the airport security queue should pay for fast track or wait like everyone else?

I don't understand this post.

When someone behind me is about to miss his/ her flight of course it doesn't bother me at all to let them jump the queue
I'm just glad it's not me who needs to run through the airport to make it.

You were being ridiculous OP.

You seem to believe that the world is divided into polite people who queue, and rude entitled people who push ahead.

The reality is that there is more give and take in the world. Most people are nuanced enough to make some compromise - that if someone is going to miss their flight they should be allowed to the front, not only for their benefit but also for everyone else’s.

Ironically you were being selfish by not going to the front. It would have caused disruption if you hadn’t made it to your flight.

If the flight is delayed because the airline has to remove your luggage from the hold, your lateness very much becomes other people's problems...

All those saying pay for fast track, the point is we shouldn't have to. Most of us arrive early, why are we queuing for hours? I like the whole airport experience. Queuing for hours to get through security when we could be through, treating ourselves to a breakfast, or letting ds's look at duty free aftershaves. Why should we have to. It's so poor, so unfair.

To be honest I’ve never had someone ask me in a queue in airport security, I’ve seen people explain to staff they’re late and be rushed through - it doesn’t bother me, sometimes in an airport it’s beyond your control if you’re on time and I hope if I’m ever late people will help me. I flew from Heathrow in March and Swiss opened check in an hour late - they argued we should all do self check in, but those of us with connecting flights couldn’t get it to work and it turned out to be most of the plane. Luckily security moved fast, but potentially we all could have been very late in the security queue through no fault of our own.

Or the same delays that held the OP up! 😂

Stansted has been awful lately. I stood in the security queue for over 1.5 hours whilst I watched the queue beside me move quickly. When it got to 25 minutes before take off I did open the barrier thing, spoke to a very apologetic worker (who acknowledged my queue wasn't moving as they only had one scanner open) asked the people at the front (it was right next to where you put your luggage) how long they'd been waiting (20 mins!) and asked if we could go in front. They were lovely. I'll never fly out of stansted again without fast track. I just about made it as has dc with me so could only run so fast.

Thanks. Do all airports do this? I usually fly from Bristol.

TBF, everything except the flights are a money making scheme for the airport.

The flights are just put on to give you a reason to go to the airport and spend money on other things (parking, fast track, overpriced food and drink, lounges, duty free, even arcades and beauty treatments).

You shouldn't have to. It's just a money making scheme on the part of the airport. And their inability to run security efficiently means that more and more feel they have to pay.

I was recently flying and we got bumped to an earlier flight when we checked in our luggage because our aircraft had been swapped to one that wasn’t accessible for one of our passengers mobility scooters.

We had no time whatsoever and it was completely beyond our control, you bet we jumped every single queue or we’d have missed our flight and onward connection.

I ran ahead and spoke to a member of staff though, we didn’t ask the other people in the queue.

You don’t always know why people are jumping forward, we’d allowed more than enough time for the flight we should’ve been on.

Sometimes people are in a rush through no fault of their own. We've been minutes from missing a flight, despite being hours early, because check in opened so late. We would have missed it had we not been allowed to queue jump?
Would it make you feel better if people missed their flights? Who does that benefit?

Separate entrance and queue with dedicated scanners for those with fast track

How does fast track work then? I only know about priority boarding but that's at the gate after security. I've never seen a fast track at security.

If I was late to the airport I'd rather the queue thought I was rude and entitled than miss my flight.

Pay for fast track. Sorted.🙂

YANBU. I don't mind when Security call out flight numbers that are being prioritised due to urgency but passengers should approach security if they have an emergency, not ask other passengers if they can jump ahead.

Security should have stepped in on these queue jumpers. Which airport is this? Heathrow security are quite tough on enforcing queue discipline ime.

Having said that, I have pushed in on some queues. We went to Tijuana, Mexico for a day trip from San Diego and for the return journey, the border queue was insanely long. My DH insisted on joining the FastLane queue, which we weren't entitled to and for which the queue was much shorter.

I was mortified but the guard let us through, after asking some questions about our origins (non Americans and non-Brits).

I think we only got away with it because of his curiosity.

This is how it was working when we flew out of Leeds a couple of weeks ago.

The new security scanners are a shambles, with frequent rescans and faults so the queues were epic - we waited about 45 mins.

They were shouting for people who's take off time was an hour or less away to come forward and go through the fast track lane, which had been suspended for anyone who'd actually paid for fast track.

So the people who'd paid for fast track were raging, but at least hopefully no-one missed their flight.

If everyone plans to turn up the recommended 2 hours or so in advance, there should be enough time to get through and there shouldn't be problems caused by people turning up too early (when there were well publicised security queues last year, people were arriving 4/5/6 hours before their flight was due to leave which led to too many people waiting at the airport).

Of course you'll get people affected by traffic delays like the OP, but that shouldn't be enough to affect the overall queuing time for most people.

YABU. I've had to jump through queue in Stansted before. It's a shit show - they put on the absolute bare minimum of staff and it was absolute bedlam. I waited patiently for 1 hour until I realised it was now or never to push and I bet most people do the same.

People who are genuinely late enough to be at risk of missing their flight should be allowed to skip the queue. There's no world in which it's better for them to miss boarding out of some kind of regard for the rules of queuing. Their luggage would have to be removed, delaying the flight and also why would we want people to miss a flight?

If you were that stuck for time OP you probably should have skipped ahead yourself.

I'm a frequent traveller and have never had this happen to me. So I very much doubt that there's any endemic CFery going on.

If you had three incidents in one queue, I imagine that they were genuine. Presumably there was a very delayed train that they'd each come in on?

It is annoying, but then I’ve been in that same situation through no fault of my own, I tend to let people through.

Flew from Luton with Ryan Air a couple of years ago, and they opened the check in desk so late so by the time we’d queued for an hour to drop bags off, we were seriously close to missing our flight. Security queue was massive so staff took pity on us and escorted us though.

We’d arrived in plenty of time and had the check in desk been opened on time, we’d have been fine.

@WarshipRocinante we had a connection through Atlanta a few years ago. Our flight got in on time but we didn't get to clear through security to get our 2nd flight. I asked a security officer and was very firmly told 'ma'am return to the line' and I did because airport security there are a bit scary!!😳

I had the same but explained my luggage was checked through to Dallas, she led us to the front of the queue because they didn’t want to offload the luggage.

This.

I don't get why you didn't ask to be moved up the queue?

I’ve never seen this happen in an airport to be honest, and I’ve travelled quite a lot. I have seen people speak to staff and be escorted through, but never anyone asking if they could. I’d probably say no if they did.