Helen Doyle abhors the long check-in lines that greet her at the airport whenever she travels. In Boston, where she works as an administrative assistant, she endures the longest waits at the Delta Air Lines counter. Sometimes I wonder how they ever get a plane off the ground when they can't organize an efficient check-in procedure.
Airlines know that the check-in procedures are deeply flawed.
And some of them, I found, are actually doing something about it. Meanwhile, passengers react to this test of their patience in different ways. Doyle and most other travelers just gripe about the long queue. But some don't take it so well. After a lengthy wait at a Continental Airlines ticket counter in Newark, N.J., last month, one of John C. Davis Jr.'s children tried to break past gate agent Angelo Sottile.