Airline Management

Scenario

I was at one of those really large hardware stores and there were two registers open. One register (register A) had 2 people in line and the other (register B) had 3 people in line. There was a problem at register A so I stood partially in line A and partially in line B, waiting to see which line would move faster. After a few minutes, there were 3 or 4 people behind me. The store manager came over and told me to move into line A. I began to explain to her about queuing theory and how customers feel about waiting in line and that I preferred to just wait where I was until I saw which line would begin to move, then I would enter that line. She smirked at me, as she motioned for the person behind me to move in front of me into line A.

Question

What do you think of that scenario and how would you have handled it if you were the store manager? Can you think of a better queuing system the hardware store could use? Imagine this was an airline ticket counter and describe what you could do to improve the customer experience.