What do you do when someone cuts in line at the airport?

Posted on 10:33 PM by
The line at San Francisco airport this morning was so long that it led one person to scream at the top of her lungs, "I hate airports!"

At 6 a.m., the line was stretched clear across an entire terminal.

After waiting for 30 minutes, I finally reached the section of the line where it snakes through a maze created by ropes. At this point, a man carrying a small carry-on surreptitiously jumped right in front of me. He came from nowhere. The nerve!

I didn't say anything but I wondered how he could do such a thing without feeling guilty.

What would you have done in this situation? Would you have spoken up?

After an hour, I finally made it to my gate and caught my flight to Las Vegas.

Photo: ski-epic.com

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

I would definitely have spoken up! If the guy had a legit excuse, like his plane was leaving in 15 mins, he could have at least begged forgiveness. At times like this is when I'm glad those Clear Lanes are coming back...I plan to rejoin

Anonymous said...

You should definitely say something. In my mid-30s, I finally stopped letting people get away with rudeness of this sort. I try not to be rude in turn, but I let them know not only that their behavior has been observed, but that I actually preceded them in line.

For a time, I assumed that the in-charge individual (e.g., airline employee) would say something, but I've seen too many cases where they were too chickens**t to say anything. I can only assume that customer service is a misguided career choice for these people.

Despite the current combative atmosphere in online environments, I believe that most people are nonconfrontative in real-life face-to-face situations. So far, I have never had a "line-jumper" respond aggressively, or even assertively, when I call them on their behavior. It puts them on the defensive, and most times they meekly retreat back into line. And if you are one of those non-confrontative people who gets irked by increasingly frequent presumptive or rude behavior, it can give you a genuine sense of empowerment. A nice little side bonus is that you typically earn the respect of most of the other people in line that were upset by the offender's behavior.

cheap flights to south america said...

I would definitely call them out on what they're doing. I cannot stand when people do that. If you call them out in front of others, they usually get embarrassed and get to the back of the line. If they want to start trouble, then that is why security is at the airport. Staying quiet just lets them feel like they can do it again since they got away with it.

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