Absolutely, the article presents the problem as trying to minimise the time that an individual wastes in a queue, not the problem of processing all of the people in the shortest time possible.<p>In the airline example, the airline wants passengers to be at the gate before they begin boarding so that they can start looking for missing passengers as early as possible.  I think we see this technique most often used by low cost carriers, and this is one of the many ways that they are able to turn aircraft around so quickly.