Flight attendant reveals why being a dreaded ‘gate lice’ can delay your plane – find out if you’re one
FLIGHT experts have revealed why being a dreaded “gate lice” can actually delay your plane.
Airline workers use the term “gate lice” to refers to those passengers who start queuing at the gate way too early.
Urban dictionary gives the definition as: “Passengers, often inexperienced flyers in [economy] class, who crowd around or line up at a gate at an airport completely blocking the boarding area and preventing first and business class passengers from being able to get on the plane when they’re allowed to.
“They can also cause delays and confusion if a passenger in a wheelchair needs to board as the chair has to plough through the mass of gate lice hovering around the gate.
“When it’s time to board, they have to be shooed from the front boarding area to the back of the line, delaying the flight for everyone.”
Gate lice are those people who queue up when there is no need to.
They are eager to spend their spare time waiting in line.
Drake Castaneda, a corporate communications manager at Delta Air Lines and former gate agent, told The Washington Post: “If you’re at the airport, you’re ready to get where you’re trying to go, so you’re just antsy and anticipating the travel experience.
“For me, even as a traveller, if I know I’m going to be sitting on a plane, especially for longer flights, I like standing.”
Shira Gabriel, a psychology professor at the University of Buffalo, told the paper: “People will do any weird thing if they think that’s the way to behave.
“When you see people lining up, getting ready, it makes you feel there’s a benefit for that”.
Queuing up early could also be a way of dealing with nerves, according to one expert.
Psychologist Dr Audrey Tang told Metro.co.uk: “Queueing for boarding as soon as we are able to can help us to feel in control, which in turn makes us feel less stressed.”
She added: “Maybe some people just like to be first, but it’s largely to do with keeping ourselves calm”.
While standing in line isn’t actually hurting anyone, it still annoys many others.
One person wrote on Instagram: “Our flight is delayed another 20 minutes and the #gatelice still can’t help themselves. The most frustrating part of flying for me by far.”
Another said: “It never ceases to amaze me the hurry some people are in to get inside a long, germ-infested metal tube.”
One flight attendant previously said: “Just stay as out of the way as possible of the boarding area until your group is at least close to being called.”
But experts have revealed why it is becoming more common and isn’t always a bad thing to be a gate-lice, despite it being looked down on.
Not only do passengers now have to fight to fit their bag in the cabin, but airlines are often overbooking passengers too.
Psychology professor Stephen Reicher, from St Andrews, told The Post: “In the case of the former [not queuing], you might miss your flight and miss your connection at the other end, in the case of the latter [queueing] you have stood up for a few minutes for no good reason.
“Queuing may be dysfunctional but it is not irrational. What people do makes perfect sense given the context they are in.
“The consequence of these structural [airline] issues is that they set up uncertainty (on any flight, I might have problems) and competition (this is a zero sum game: others getting on with bags lowers the chance of me getting on with bags).”
SECRET CABIN CREW WORDS
Flight attendants have a special language they use to talk about passengers, including the ones they find attractive.
There are a number of other secret phrases used by pilots and cabin crew too, some serious and others less so.
- Cropdusting: If a passenger is being very rude and difficult, then it’s not unheard of for a flight attendant to break wind and ‘cropdust’ past the offender.
- Code Adam: This is used by airport staff to alert other staff of a missing child, in honour of Adam Walsh, a child who was abducted in a department store in 1981.
- 7500: If a pilot “squawks 7500” it means the plane has been hijacked, or a hijacking is a threat.
- Crosscheck: If you hear this phrase, usually made by senior cabin crew, it means that the emergency slides attached to each door have been deactivated.
Most airlines now charge passengers to check their bags in, which had led to more people than ever travelling with cabin bags only.
However, the huge rise in this means there is less space onboard, so some passenger might have to check their luggage if they are last on the plane.
Earlier this year, a man slammed gate-licers – and people weren’t on his side either.
He said: “Why do people do this? I fly economy all the time and just sit and wait until it’s my turn to board.
“It’s also annoying having to squeeze through people when it’s your turn to board. It just doesn’t make sense to me.”
But lots of fellow travellers explained why this happens more often than ever.
Someone replied: “Most flights operate full these days, so if you board in a later group there’s a good chance your bag will be gate checked.
“It’s really annoying when people crowd the gate, but… I get it at least given the above.”
It comes after another airline that operates from the UK scrapped free hand luggage onboard.
One man admitted he was always last to board the flight – and some agreed with him.