Hi

Hope I'm not hijacking here but to LaVisiteure and anyone else on a tight fight schedule. When I flew to Europe (one week after 9/11) it eventually became obvious we were going to miss our connecting flight from Heathrow to Rome due to security problems. After explaining my problem I asked the stewards if there was anyway we could get our luggage on a priority basis. They kindly moved us to Business class (so that's how the other half live!) for the last 20 minutes of our flight. Sadly we still missed our flight (got the next one 3 hours later). You may want to keep this tip in mind. Just a word of advice - if you are going to ask do so discretely. Other passengers overheard my request and the crew were so overwhelmed with "express" requests that an understandably annoyed Captain made an announcement on the PA something on the lines that there will be no concessions permitted and if passengers miss their flight, well unlucky...
I felt a little awkward but what the heck, I asked first and I got Business class for 20 minutes!

Hope this helps.