Nowadays, now that it costs to check a bag and everyone bringing massive, oversized carryon, I can kind of get why you would want to get overhead space before everyone else but, even before when overhead space was not at a premium, it seemed like everyone was eager to be the first onto a plane.
The way I see it, I have a choice of either being crammed into a tiny seat breathing recycled air and being jostled around by everyone else boarding or I can sit in a relatively spacious seat, close to power, with a view of the tarmac for the 20 minutes that boarding takes. Given the choice, I usually try to figure out a way to be one of the last people on the plane. It just baffles me why anyone would want to be first.
Well, doh, you don’t want them to leave without you, do you?
I kid, I agree with you completely. Imagine if everyone thought this way, though? You’d never be able to board a plane. You’d have to offer free blowjobs just to trick someone to be the first one in.
If you fly easyjet you don’t have pre-assigned seats, so if you want to sit together or at the window, you need to be in the front. Otherwise, when I’m flying in a group we usually know the range of seats we have…the first there gets to pick which one he takes :).
I hate being one of the last to board because then I can’t find room for my bag, and it either has to go under the plane or a flight attendant finds a spot for it a mile away from my seat, making it harder, or impossible, for me to get up and get anything out of it during the flight.
I also like to take a minute to get comfortable, wiggling around, arranging my sweater as a pillow, finding the perfect seatbelt tightness, and reading the safety information. It’s easier to do that without someone else’s elbow in the way.
If everyone would abide by the carryon requirements- one bag that fits in the overhead bin and anything else must be small enough to go under the seat in front- I’d agree with you. But everytime I travel I still see people carrying 3-4 things on, shopping bags, oversized bags, plus a winter coat, and a cowboy hat that they put overhead in the space of a suitcase plus their own suitcase, etc. And flight attendants don’t do much about it.
If I’m traveling with small duffel that I can cram in anywhere, I take my time and let the cattle stream on while I wait by the gate. But if I have a standard rolling bag, I get my ass on the plane and stake out my overhead spot before it’s gone.
i’ve seen people jostle their way to the front during a red light at a pedestrian crossing; then take their own sweet time to stroll across when it turns green, forcing everyone else to scoot around them.
Keep in mind, the issue is not only “is there any overhead space for my bag?” A big issue is “is there any overhead space for my bag near my seat?”
Lots of jerks walk onto the plane and throw their big bag in the first open space they see available. Then they walk down a dozen rows to take their seat. Because of this, when I find my seat, the bins around my seat are completely full while there are open ones in the back of the plane.
Now I have to travel to to back of the plane to find open bins and then travel against the flow of the other boarding passengers (who are also carying bags to the end of the plane) to sit in my seat. When it becomes time to deplane, redo everything in reverse. You can either fight your way to the back of the plane against the flow to claim your bag or wait forever for everyone to leave the plane.
If there was an airline that enforced this, and set up a dumpster at the gate so anything that didn’t fit in the allotted per passenger space was forcibly taken from the traveler and thrown away – not checked at the gate, not stowed away in another section of the plane, but THROWN IN THE GARBAGE – I would be that airline’s most loyal customer.
I’d rather pay to check my bags than lug around carry-ons anyhow. When they announce boarding, you can usually find me still snoring in the lounge until last call.
Carry-on luggage is the bane of my traveling existence. I only fly airlines that don’t have bag fees or if I must, whose fees are less than $20 and I check my shit. I’ve already spent hundreds of dollars on the ticket, if I can’t afford another 20 bucks I can’t afford to go, period. And yet even on those planes there are still the psychos who insist on doing the carry-on dance. Seriously, how much shit do you really need?!
They really ought to draw/paint/mark some dividing lines in those overhead bins and number them to their corresponding seats.
You get your reserved 1.5 linear feet of space and that’s it!
If you are a family with a small child you NEED three seats together. So you throw yourself in head first. If you don’t it is no fun having a toddler missing the other parent. No fun to shoulder the care alone, with a kid scared by the sensation of inner ear pressure and bored stiff with sitting still for x hours. No fun annoying another passenger next to you with kid stuff.
But, that’s only an issue on airlines which don’t have assigned seating. In the U.S., I believe that Southwest is the only airline with open seating – all the other majors (American, United / Continental, USAir, Delta / Northwest) all still assign seats.
(And, in the U.S., most airlines do “pre-boarding” for families with little kids and people who need extra time to get into their seats, anyway.)
I’m worse than you. I don’t hate flying. In fact, I think it’s magical that we’re able to get piles of steel weighing hundreds of tonnes into the air just by attaching a pair of flimsy looking wings, and then use them to zip off to foreign locations. When I’m going on a plane, I’m way to busy being amazed to find any part of the process annoying. I’ve come to understand that this is hopelessly out of touch. I’m supposed to bitch and moan the whole time about everything from the security checks to the boarding time to the leg room to the time spent on the tarmac before take-off to the food to the length of the female cabin crew’s skirts. I don’t. I go through all of it in a state of idiotic bliss.
Except that you are not allotted any space per passenger/seat in the overhead bins - there isn’t enough room for everyone to have that much space assigned to them.
Airplanes simply were not designed with that much bin space being used per person, and what you are suggesting is actually entirely impossible to do. The overhead bins were intended for coats, purses and hats, not for large wheeled carry-on bags, and there is no aircraft currently in operation that has space intended for one such bag per passenger.
The CSeries is trying to have this, but no other types of bags/carry-on would fit if everyone brought one of those bags. Also, the aircraft is still in it’s design phase and might not accomplish this goal.
ETA: Martian Bigfoot - I’m the same way. I love air travel, I find commercial planes and airline/airport operations to be fascinating and there isn’t much that annoys me about airplane flights. I’m going to the UK in a couple of weeks and I’m so excited to get to take a plane (which I last did 6 months ago!). They are just so cool!