From ‘gate lice’ to rushed muppets: Is shame the last hope for civilised travel?

You set the alarm for stupid o’clock and the Uber arrived on time.

You navigated the bag drop queue and survived the security cattle grid shoes-off-laptops-and-liquids-out palaver, only to be picked for the random explosives trace test.

“Gate lice” in action.Credit: iStock

You made it to the gate with enough time to queue at the loos and buy an overpriced coffee on the way, and then, just as you are slipping into holiday relaxation mode, the shame beeping begins.

If the airport departure experience wasn’t soul-destroying enough, American Airlines announced last week that it is introducing a new power trip for gate agents – trialling new technology to clamp down on so-called “gate lice” (the swarms of people who try to cut the line and board early).

Now, at three US airports in Virginia, New Mexico and Arizona, passengers who try to board ahead of their assigned group will be publicly shamed with the alert, before being sent back to wait until their section is called.

Qantas is shifting to similar technology, having rolled out group boarding on B737, A330, and 787 flights departing from Brisbane, Perth, Melbourne, and Sydney’s domestic airports in June. Under the new system, the pass scanner will only permit passengers to board once their group has been invited to do so. If a traveller is not eligible to board yet, the pass reader will issue an alert to staff, and they too will likely be sent back away.

From an airline’s commercial perspective I understand that time is money, and that it’s important to reduce delays by having people board efficiently.

Over the years, airline experts have dreamed up all sorts of fancy boarding systems – window-to-aisle, the reverse pyramid, the Steffen method – to improve turnaround times and encourage travellers to obey the very simple rules.

But all the algorithms and beeps in the world can’t fix a universal truth of flying – people are not robots and quite often don’t act rationally when in airports. They also don’t factor in the tendency of some of us to miss boarding calls because we’re distracted by our smartphones or are wearing noise-cancelling headphones to drown out obnoxious travellers.

For a long time, the aviation industry’s focus on the bottom line has felt like it’s come at a cost for the user experience.

On some recent train journeys across Italy, the fuss-free boarding experience was a revelation. No one hassled me about the weight of my hand luggage. I sunk into a comfy seat with plenty of legroom and felt completely zen.

Given the rigmarole of getting air side, I don’t blame some passengers for being in a rush to get on the plane and get it over with. Many people are anxious about flying, desperate to get to their seats, pop their pills and take a nap.

Personally, I’d happily let someone skip ahead of me so that they can do their breathing exercises than watch them have a panic attack at 30,000 feet because they had to board last.

Brussels airport has a cool answer to jittery fliers that doesn’t involve shameful beeps or panic attacks – some gates now have bicycle-powered phone recharge stations for passengers to burn off their nervous energy.

Poor airport design also has a part to play in the rise of gate lice. At many gates, there’s not enough seating, meaning people mill about and are eager to park themselves the minute the opportunity arises. Loudspeaker announcements can also be mumbling and impossible to hear, so it’s easy to rock up at the wrong moment.

In reality, the main contributor for people trying their luck early is overhead bin space. Since airlines started charging people for checked-in suitcases in the 2010s, the rise of carry-on luggage-only travellers who unashamedly admit to trying to board early and nab the prime real estate has come with its own headaches.

My most well-travelled friend Kate, who had 57 international flights in 2023 alone, noted that most cabin crew turn a blind eye to passengers putting small bags overhead rather than under the seat in front. Tackling that could easily free up space and reduce queue-jumping.

If we’re going to shame anyone, it should be the muppets who deliberately cut it fine, getting to the airport late, happily cruising to the gate on a buggy, and having no qualms walking onto a plane with unimpressed passengers who have been forced to wait and endure half a dozen head counts from three different cabin crew members, all because they are addicted to the adrenaline rush race to the gate.

Lisa Martin is an Australian journalist living in Copenhagen.

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