Where can I find the rules for gate checking baggage? I’m specifically interested in United’s rules, but I’ll take any advice. I checked the “baggage” section of their website, but while it contains rules for checked bag and carry-on bags, it is completely silent on gate checking. Thanks.
Have you considered contacting United and speaking with a human?
WAG, since you are at the gate, the only things you should have with you is a carryon bag and/or anything you purchased in the sterile concourse. I am unaware of any US carrier that will allow you to carry a larger bag through security for a gate check. (TSA would probably stop you as well since anything larger than a carryon wouldn’t make it through security.)
/travel guru hat ON/
“Gate checking” a bag is largely dependant upon the size of the aircraft and it’s passenger load for that specific leg of the journey.
Basically, if it’s determined by the crew/gate agent that you’ll be unlikely to stow the item safely either in overhead bin or under seat, that the item will be given a tag and will be stowed (checked) to the point where you disembark that aircraft. Whereupon, you’ll receive that item before you leave the vicinity of the aircraft.
Most airlines don’t have specific rules regarding gate-checking bags as far as passengers are concerned. It’s a judgement call by the staff at boarding.
/travel guru hat OFF/
Where’d you get this notion? Guitars are larger than carry-on size bags, and are routinely taken through security and often gate-checked.
I sit corrected. Perhaps some oversized and valuable/fragile things are allowed to go through security, for the expressed purposed of being gated-checked and handled personally by the baggage crew into/and out of the baggage hold, rather than through normal baggage checkin.
But I’ve also gone through TSA security and told by TSA staff that if an item cannot pass through the screening machine, it must go through baggage checkin. In other words, no gate checkin allowed.
Depends what you mean by “larger.”
I flew American Airlines from San Diego to Washington, and back, a couple of weeks ago. Near the check-in counter, they had one of those metal frames that let you see if your bag is too big for carry-on. I reckon about half the people on my flight had carry-on bags that would not have fit in the frame. A few of them literally would not fit in the overhead compartments of our McDonnell-Douglass Super 80, and had to be gate checked.
Of course, the airlines are tacitly encouraging people to take larger and larger bags onto the aircraft, by charging a fee to check your first bag. The fee on American for the first checked bag was $15, and for the second was, i think, $25. As long as this system is in place, passengers will do whatever they can to get their large bags onto the aircraft, and the airline staff seem essentially uninterested in enforcing the size limit.
All this wouldn’t really worry me very much, except for a couple of things:
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I prefer to check my larger bag, and to take just a small satchel with me onto the plane, with a book, my MP3 player, some essential documents, and a change of underwear, socks, and shirt (in case my checked bag gets lost). Because of all the selfish assholes who bring on a massive roller case and another bag, the overhead bins fill up incredibly quickly, and on a couple of occasions i’ve actually been asked to stow my satchel under the seat in front of me so that some douchebag’s wheelie suitcase can go overhead. Well fuck them. I bring a small bag specifically so i can tuck it in the overhead and keep the area around my feet free.
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On all four legs of my recent flight (2 legs each way), we ended up leaving the gate late because all the fucking douchebags with large cases spent a fucking eternity trying to find space for them in the overhead bins. We started boarding on time and, i’m not kidding, it must have taken 45 fucking minutes to load an aircraft with fewer than 160 people. On two of the flights, people would walk their big cases up to the back of the plane where there was room in the overhead compartments and then, rather than wait for everyone else to get seated would fight their way back down the aisle against the flow to get to their seats. I was ready to bust open the emergency exit and throw people from the plane.
Sorry for the rant; this just happened to get me riled up, and i felt like sharing.
One thing i did wonder:
When we were taking our seats on the plane, the flight attendant made an announcement that went something like this:
“If you cannot find a place for your luggage in the overhead compartments, or if your luggage is too big to fit in the overhead bins, please bring it to the front of the plane and we will Gate Check it for you.”
I found myself wondering whether they charge the $15 for a Gate Check. If not, it might be a good way to check your bag without paying the fee, especially if the bag is actually small enough to get through security, but you don’t want the hassle of dragging it onto the plane.
Personally, i prefer waiting an extra 15 minutes at the other end for my checked luggage, rather than deal with the hassle of getting it through security, dragging it around the waiting area, and dealing with it on the plane.
The darned thing is, they probably end up with the same number of bags in the cargo hold, but this way, you can’t bring a pocketknife with you, or a jar of homemade jelly.
Former airline type …
Not necessarily. In many/most cases, “gate check” means it enters the checked baggage stream at the departure gate, but at arrival it will be offloaded with the normal baggage and end up on a carousel at baggage claim at your final destination.
On very small planes with very limited overhead space, e.g. RJs, many would-be carryons are tagged at the gate & taken below. Those will be offloaded to the jetway (or tarmac) at the next stop for you to claim adjacent to the airplane.
On larger aircraft some items, such as baby strollers or wheelchairs, can be gate-checked for “gate delivery”. Those will be delivered back up to the jetway upon arrival. That service is NOT generally available for ordinary luggage.
Why not? Becasue everybody would want to use it & we’d be trying to perform the complete baggage claim function inside the jetway during deplaning. That’s a clog & chaos situation on a 30-seater with just 15 people’s carryons sent below; doing that on a 150 seater would be insane.
Hint: If the tag the gate agent puts on your bag includes the destination code (ORD, SFO, etc.) or any barcodes, it’s going to end up on a carousel at your final destination. If it looks more like a valet car ticket, just some elastic & a serial number with no more info either preprinted or written in, then you’re probably gonna get it at the arrival jetway/planeside.
When you turn in a bag at the departure gate you can try to ask for “gate delivery”, but that’s a very very long shot for a normal passenger with a normal bag. Odds are, you’re gonna get “gate check” and be waiting at the destination carousel for your bag.
I was recently on a Northwest flight where the gate agents were working the people waiting on the boarding ramp, trying to get them to check their carry-on bags since the flight was full. This wasn’t really a gate check, since they were checking through to the final destination, but it was free.
This is all quite interesting. I ask because I am an infrequent flyer (mostly RJs and 737s) and routinely see 20-30 passengers (usually business types) standing in the jetway during deplaning, waiting for their gate-check baggage. Many of these bags are clearly far too large to be carryons. I’ve never heard of any gate checked bags going into the checked luggage stream. Of course, I don’t know many frequent flyers.
The consensus here, then, is that it depends on a whole lot of things and don’t be an asshole. Sounds good, although it bears mentioning that I had no intention of attempting to gate check a golf bag, surf board, or 50 pound duffel bag.
Policies are airline specific, but the rule is generally that if it is of carry-on size, but there just isn’t space for it, it’s gate checked free of charge and returned to you at the jetbridge upon arrival.
If you somehow managed to get that huge, 50 lb roller bag through the TSA checkpoint, the rule is generally that it’s to be tagged as checked luggage, and you’re charged the applicable fees for checking a bag. It’s then returned to you on the baggage claim carousel at the point.
Whether or not these rules are enforced are a crapshoot, depending entirely on the mood of the gate agent.
This may be partly due to the fact that it’s a lot easier to overlook someone’s massive bag that should be tagged as checked and sent to a carousel in favor of simply tagging it as a gate check to be returned on arrival. The former tags are either computer generated or manually tagged, but almost always require more effort on the part of the gate agent than the latter tags – especially if there are fees involved. If a gate agent is pressed to turn a flight on time, he/she is a lot more likely to say “here’s a gate check tag, pick it up on the jetbridge when you arrive” versus “sorry, that’s not overhead size–you’ll have to check that in, pay the fee, and pick it up at the luggage carousel. Here, let me pull up your reservation…”