I have a little 22" carry-on suitcase and when I fly, it’s pretty much always international. I belong to this loosely-formed Rick Steves “One Bag Club”, and absolutely all I need for a 10-12 day trip fits into that thing, so no checked baggage fee for me. I also have a courier bag that goes under the front of my seat where I keep all the stuff I may need during the flight.
So I’m all legal, got my boarding pass, the correct seat and all I have to do is settle in, right?
Wrong. No room in my overhead compartment (again, not that I need it), but part of that space is mine, dammit. Somebody got on board with one of those over-size things and they caused everything to be shifted toward the front/back of the airplane. Oh yeah, what’s that announcement about “some of your bags may have shifted during the flight”? Bullshit. There’s no damn room for them to shift!
I try not to be a Nazi about it, but it sure is a wrong way to begin a Trans-Atlantic flight.
It’s not always there. I just found three boarding passes, less than 12 months old, and none of them have a boarding group printed anywhere. I’ve seen plenty of others too - probably the second or third hop of a long trip.
I’ve jumped the queue a few times. I’d be happy to follow the instructions if they made any sense. But when some bored attendant drools “now boarding group blurble furble”, and there’s not a damn thing on my boarding pass that gives a hint as to whether I’m blurble or furble, I’ll wait till there’s a lull in the queue and wander in then. Never been knocked back yet.
Thing is, the first thing I do when I get to my seat is sit. Not stand in the aisle holding everyone up as I try to cram some wheeled monstrosity into the overhead bin. My one bag goes under the seat. If I have a jacket to put up top, I’ll wait till after the rush.
Also note that for pretty much every airplane designed prior to about 10 years ago (so, most planes most of you have ever flown on) were not designed with the intent of every passenger having room for one wheeled-carry-on bag in the overhead bins. You are not entitled to overhead bin space for anything at all.
In fact, the bins weren’t even designed to hold these bags in the first place; that’s why you’re told to put heavier bags at our feet and lighter items above. Most planes have had to refit/redesign the doors and latches on the bins in order to accommodate the shock of these bags moving in flight and prevent the doors from opening and the contents being dumped on passengers. For smaller regional jets, those bags don’t even fit, no matter how you place them.
Even the new planes and ones under development don’t promise room for one bag per passenger unless nothing else of any shape gets stored in the bins, and all bags are smaller than a certain size.
I understand why this upsets and annoys people, but I also feel that a lot of people feel entitled to stuff even if they really aren’t.
It’s not about “entitlement.” It never is. This is a commercial exchange. When it becomes common for your clientele to demand a certain level of service, using the word entitlement is going to lead you down the wrong road.
The last overhead bin usually has the flight attendant’s bags along with the AED and the box of supplies for the safety briefing. This shifts everything up towards the front. People can feel pissed, but I doubt the guy at the back of the plane just decided to screw you over on purpose.
… airlines aren’t going to redesign/replace the airplanes at the rate that people would like them to. If it’s just physically impossible for everyone to have space for one of these bags, what is the airline to do? They allow the bags because people want them, they offer free gate-checking out of necessity…what else can they do? What the passengers want can’t be done. There is no room - there never was room - and for most planes that will be in service for the next 20-30 years there will never be room. Larger planes can be better at this, for sure, but the small planes are still going to be small, and there’s nothing much to do about that.
For fun*, I once tried to redesign the bins in a CRJ-700/900 (same fuselage diameter) to accommodate these types of bags at all and I couldn’t do it without reducing headroom above the seat back to just a couple of inches, particularly at the window. Sure, I wasn’t using official drawings or anything, but the overall dimensions of the plane are pretty easy to find withing a couple of centimetres of accuracy.
So I return to the fact that it’s unreasonable for passengers to expect the airlines to accommodate their luggage desires, simply because it’s literally impossible to do so.
United does it this way, and I do think it is better. I believe that families can board together at the time of the earliest block. United does little right these days except this.
I heartily agree with the OP. I think a big problem is the proliferation of boarding groups. Back in the good old days it was families with babies, geezers, then 4 groups, the first being first class. Now it is platinum club, gold club, turkey club, parents with children, children with parents, dogs, kangaroos, terrorists, and then finally the run of the mill passengers. (Boarding group 5 - the wing.) It is wrong, but no wonder some people think the plane will have arrived at the destination before they get to board.
Not to mention the people bringing all their worldly possessions as carry ons, plus the kitchen sink.
As usual Southwest does it best. If you are with it enough to request a boarding pass exactly 24 hours before the flight, you will get a decent number. You line up by numbers, and you can see those of the people in front of you, so no cheating. And free baggage. It was bad in the old A, B,C days, but much improved now.
WHY would you rush and elbow, or even just stress about it… just for the privelege of breathing recycled bacteria-laden dry stale air for longer than you need to?
My mother’s even been known to fly first-class. “It was so nice to get to board ahead of the masses!” But then she goes on to explain how she’ll probably get a cold now because of “that horrible airplane air”.
Dunno what airlines you fly but I’ve never heard a single attendant say anything about putting heavier items under the seat in front of you. They always say put your smaller item under the seat in front of you.
Unless you are traveling with a bowling ball I don’t know how heavy of an item you could reasonably fit under the seat anyway.
Uniteds 767s are the only ones that REALLY fuck you over with the cary ons. You CANNOT fit a regulation roll aboard in the over head bin wheels first. You MUST put it in sideways. I’m not talking about jumbo bags here. I’m talking bags that fit in the test box outside the aircraft. I have no idea WTF they were thinking when they configured these planes that way. No one beyond boarding group 2 gets their carry on in the cabin.
They kid of fucked up the 777 too. The bins over the windows will fit regulation sized bags wheels first but the ones over the middle aisles don’t even come close, so everyone has to go sideways, keeping others from putting their bags in the bin.
I know I’ve been told this multiple times on Air Canada and Air Transat. I don’t know about other airlines offhand, but I’ve travelled with Sunwing, Ryan Air, American, United, Continental, British Airways and Delta all in the past 5 years…I’ll try and see if British Airways says anything in 2 weeks when I take them.
There really isn’t a regulation sized bag - there are IATA guidelines, but different airlines can and do change the requirements. But the 767 and 777 were, I believe, designed before everyone started using the damn things and therefore were not designed with them in mind. Refurbished interiors can only do so much; sometimes there isn’t room to make bigger bins and still accommodate the important stuff, like air valves and oxygen masks.
It’s really not a case of airlines screwing you over. It’s a case of manufacturers not designing with these bags in mind, likely because they were much less common at the time of the initial design. The intent of the overhead bins was for things like coats and hats, not for luggage; that’s simply a reflection of the history of air travel.
Likewise with cell phones/wifi - older planes were not designed with them in mind, so it’s not as simple as just saying “allow it.” Newer planes will take these things into account, but it’s a long process between aircraft designs.
I’ve heard the heavy things under the seat/light things up above thing many times. Like **mnemosyne **I’ve heard it on Air Canada as well as WestJet - maybe it just depends on airline?
People who don’t know how to board annoy me, but the people with the gigantic carry-ons are way more annoying. And WestJet, the airline I fly the most frequently, doesn’t even charge for checking a bag, so there’s no reason for it. The huge roll-ons are super obnoxious and there’s no way most of them would fit in that sizing device, and most of the people who carry them know it. Come on, we all hate waiting for our bag on that carousel at the other end and nobody likes it if their luggage gets lost, but if you want to take all your stuff as carry on you’ve got to learn to travel really light or else just suck it up and deal with it like the rest of us.
Unfortunately the airlines always let people get away with it. All in the name of customer service (except for the customers who actually follow the rules).
I think problems are rarer for a “gate checked” bag than for one you check at the check-in desk. Bags at the gate go directly onto the plane that’s at that gate.
I’m quite sure there are some screw-ups. Mercifully, I’ve experienced none - which is definitely not the case for non-gate-checked bags.
I usually always fly delta, between miles and they seem to have the cheapest tickets. They usually board back to front. So while people are still finding their seats and putting things in the overhead, the next group can start to come in since the isles where their seats are , are clear.
I have personally once been assigned the exact same seat as someone else. Along with my mom and dad. Wasn’t a big deal since we sat down first, the other family had to wait for another flight.
I have been paranoid ever since.
I’ve seen it happen to other people twice.
Once i was in dubai and when we checked in really close to that 2-hour pre-departure time. The lady said uh oh. Then you could hear her on the phone saying, “but they only have a 2 hour lay-over and 2 more connections.” 45 min later we finally got our boarding passes.
I have my own business, but i deal directly with the public. Someone posted that some people don’t feel the need to follow rules. I’ve had that literally said to me countless times. “I do not have to follow your rules, i can do whatever i want.” More often from the lower tier of society (where the most respectful people also seem to come from), but it comes from just about every type of person out there.
I also make a point now to just gate check except my laptop. I usually keep it below the seat in front of me. Few times that caused my knees to hurt, but since its a smaller bag, people insist they get to throw their large carryon, on top.
They also offer free booze both during the flight and before (most airlines will serve before takeoff, anyway), as well as complimentary meals and snacks, and from time to time additional entertainment options for free that normally would cost money (ie: TV/Movies). Throw in the checked bag fee getting waived, and you end up with something that is pretty reasonable if you go for the “upgrade” option ($50-$125, usually) instead of just buying first class outright ($$$).
I can understand wanting to be towards the front of the plane so you can get off slightly faster, but I think having a window seat over a middle seat would outweigh the advantage. There are few things worse on a flight than being crammed between two oversized armrest-hoggers and having to scrunch in just to have the illusion of personal space. I’ll take the window seat every time, thankyouverymuch.
I fly at least once a month and see this all the time and it really pisses me off, along with idiots putting in millions of tiny bags in the overhead bins, filling them up, instead of putting them under the seats in front of them, causing a massive logjam as everybody has to shift their shit out of the bins to get any larger carry-on baggage aboard.
There is a bit of a prisoners’ dilemma problem. Once one person “defects” (starts hovering around the line-entrance) everyone else’s best strategy is to defect as well, or else they will be near the end of the line once they call their boarding group.
Similarly I’m always annoyed at the baggage claim carousel, where people start crowding and leaning in. This forces me to crowd in and lean in as well in order to spot my luggage. But if no one defected in the first place, and stood back a foot or two from the carousel, most everybody would have plenty of time to spot their luggage without having to lean over someone else’s shoulder.
