Why does it take so long to check-in at the airport

[Stephy1886]

Most of the time the self checkin isn’t working so everyone has to wait in line to check on hold luggage

I’m always surprised how long it takes groups / individuals to checkin

when it’s finally my turn it’s hand over the passports then put each suitcase on to check the weight,
get the boarding passes & see you later.

the amount of times you see folk giving staff long winded stories, standing up there for ages. Why do some folk take so long to hand over a passport & weigh a case?

Or maybe the OP just has their shit together compared to the muppets who rock up to the desk with overweight bags or wanting to make changes to their booking that they could have done online before leaving home. Yes, some people are just victims of circumstances outside of their control but from what I can see most delays are from people just being crap, disorganised or wanting special treatment.

He always takes his CPAP machine and meds in the cabin anyway. I travel pretty light, but still like to wear clean clothes every day and take my own toiletries etc so I am happy to pay for hold luggage.

Same! One the very rare occasion I'm checking in at the airport or doing a bag drop, I'm stuck behind the clueless and ditherers. Last time it happened, I was flying to Nice and 2-girls were arguing with staff in the bag drop as they checked their bags separately but didn't pay attention to only one ticket having the allowance. Cost them £130 in excess baggage. Annoyingly, they were on the same flight and wouldn't stop going on about it the entire way.

Thankfully it is a very rare occasion for this to happen as I travel light 99% of the time but when it hits, I'm in awe at how some people function.

I know what you mean! We have our passports out and open, hand them over and are done in a minute or two, yet we see others in front of us faffing about and having lengthy chats with the airport staff. Just crack on!

Same at security- we'd make sure our electronics were out/belts off etc yet you see others waiting til they pick a tray up to start sorting their shit out.

We went on holiday a few weeks ago, the whole airport experience was shit. So bad it’s put us off going on holiday again for a very long time.

Molone , sorry to read this ..
it does put you off. I can remember when it was a fairly pleasant experience, but I'm going back forty odd years! It's now just stress and faff.

Some people are just infuriating ditherers with zero sense of urgency or consideration for the queue building behind you.

I know it's a different situation 😂 but I go to Slimming World every week. There are two queues, first to pay then to weigh. I can get through both in a minute. Hand my book and card over, they tap tap on the laptop, scan my phone to pay. Step over, slip my sandals off, weigh, they write it in the book, slip sandals back on, boom I'm done and out.

There's one particular women who just takes soooo long. She's only about 50 so not elderly. She doesn't do anything 'wrong' but fuck me, everything she does takes an age and every action is slow and careful and considered. Placing her bag carefully on the table to go through and retrieve her card, book, phone. Then putting those on the desk and carefully placing her bag on the floor. Taking her coat and shoes off is one of the most frustrating acts i've ever had to watch. I'm ready to scream by the time she's done.

In the U.K. self check in seems to work well, recently long queues I've experienced have been overseas and typically because people haven't managed to print the various things on holiday. TUI are pretty good at hovering around with an iPad checking in people who haven't managed it in resort I find, whereas RYan Air seem never to have enough staff to help people struggling so they have to line up hence delays at the bag drop

It’s mostly people being unprepared. They haven’t checked in online. Haven’t printed their boarding passes. Haven’t taken their passports out of their bag. Haven’t booked seats together and seemingly after queuing for 30 minutes they seem surprised they are at the front of the queue and are completely unprepared so faff. Also some people like to talk a lot

I've flown at less busy times of the year or without hold luggage and it has been incredibly quick. But yes in summer there tends to be long queues - for one thing online check and bag drop does not really speed things up, as some people only use these once a year or maybe haven't flown for a good while or encountered the system before.

And even when I've flown recently for work things like security at different airports varies- shoes off/on, phone in or out of bag etc, and don't get me started on liquids.

Just give yourself plenty of time and be patient.

With us it's usually because we've got a weird ticket as our luggage is being booked on to the arse end of nowhere to our airport that they've never heard of...

I was stood behind someone for ages once who just wouldn't accept that her luggage was overweight.

Someone else who'd lost their passports but was still hoping they could fly.

Other people who seem just bemused by the whole experience.

This.

Lack of staffing does not compel people to pack a bag exceeded weight limits, wanting to change their seat, forgetting where they placed their passport, packing oversized toiletries in their hand luggage and generally being disorganised fuckwitts.

Other people who seem just bemused by the whole experience.

Not everyone is a frequent flyer. We flew for the first time since 2019 this year, but had checked in online and got passports and printed boarding passes ready. and

Since we last flew from that airport they have introduced some new bag drop technology that we were unfamiliar with. Luckily it wasn't busy and Jet2 had plenty of personnel on hand to help out. We weren't the only passengers who hadn't come across this before.

We also have a luggage scale at home to make sure we are never over the weight limit.

We recently were at the airport with my parents, who were flying internationally and we weren't, and they took longer than I thought humanly possible. When they finally came away from the desk, it turned out that all of their bags were overweight but unevenly and the agent made them even it out. And then for some reason they decided to put some fragile souvenirs in a checked bag so the agent had to go off to find a "Fragile" sticker for it. Honestly I don't know how we went anywhere when I was a kid 😅

I wonder if it's an individual airport thing, i fly out of Leeds with Jet2 quite a lot and everyone moves quickly, we're usually through check in and bag drop within 5-10 minutes.

You've been lucky with Leeds @NeedthatFridayfeeling. We also fly from there a few times and sometimes do get through quickly.

However, 2 of the 3 times we've flown out of there this year, it's taken around 45 minutes to get through security because the introduction of the new scanners has been a bit of a disaster so you can't rely on getting through quickly, although last time we went through there, they'd suspended tickets for the fast track lane and were using it to get people who were under an hour from departure through so they didn't miss their flight.

We definitely got lucky in May as were 5th in line in security but i could see the que building quickly behind us, they were at the time still allowing fast track too which held things up, i felt so sorry for the 1 guy they had checking tickets.

We flew out of LBA with Jet2 in May as well. It was the quietest I have seen it for a long time. I think it was probably the time of year and day of week (Tuesday).

…and if you’ve looked at the news today you’ll see Ryanair are in poo because April- June figures are not great and they only made an average profit of roughly £6 per passenger carried over that period, summer is not looking great either…

The flying public can have unlimited numbers of crewed check in desks and unlimited numbers of customer service staff if they so desire, and a whole lot more both on the ground and on board, but they can’t have that level of service and have fares down at the level a lot of people seem to think they should be.

My dm sabotages me everytime at security.
She's 88, I put her inhalers in a clear plastic bag on the tray, she sails through in her wheelchair and then I can't find her hand luggage.
And every bloody time she's managed to thrown an inhaler in her hand bag without me noticing.
The security staff look irritated.
I'm irritated.
So blame my mum.
I do.

I don't have much of an issue with check-in as I very rarely use it. (cabin bag only and pre check-in)
But omg some people at security. Standing in a queue for 20 minutes, signs everywhere saying "Get prepared" remove coats, have liquids ready etc and they rock up, stand in front of the tray, and then start removing their coat, taking off a belt, rummaging in their bag looking for their liquid bag or even worse, collecting liquids to put in a bag.
There are literally signs every few feet asking people to be ready so security wait times are reduced and yet they arrive at the desk, blissfully unaware of what they need to do

I notice it all the time in different areas of life, even dropping kids off and picking up.. some people always have lots to say. I like being efficient in and out unless there's a problem of course

Airport procedures are a huge faff involving lots of stages, documents to be produced at different times, sometimes this one, sometimes that, sometimes both. Sometimes for several dependents as well as yourself. Rules about what can go in the hold and what can't, issues about who needs to check in what bags in your party. What happens with your car seat, the buggy, wrapped or unwrapped...People become confused. Especially if they don't fly from one year to the next, they're tired from the weird time they got up and they have children in tow distracting them.

And even when I've flown recently for work things like security at different airports varies- shoes off/on, phone in or out of bag etc, and don't get me started on liquids

That is deliberate so you can't game the system.

The liquids thing is ridiculous though. They've had since 2006 to sort that out and they are still dithering, and even the airports who had the new scanners working have had to stop using them again!