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Originally Posted by Courtervideo
With most airlines charging rapidly increasing fees for luggage, the flying public has responded by carrying the maximum amount of baggage on-board. After a recent trip with 6 flights in 6 days, we saw the results of these policies: if you are not among the first half of passengers on board, your carry-on luggage will likely not find space in the overhead compartments. Never in 40 years of travel have we seen such frantic and desperate attempts by the passengers to board early and get access to the limited space. I spoke to one flight attendant who said she used to love her job, but with the new baggage policies, "hated the boarding process" and would soon quit. With carry-ons becoming a major hassle and passengers giving their bags to attendants who search up and down the isle to find spaces into which to jam luggage, both the boarding and exiting processes have become far less efficient causing delays and missed connections. There is no joy in airline travel anymore.
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Although I am not a FA, I agree with their sentiment wholeheartedly. The carry-on situation is rapidly becoming not just a problem, but an epidemic. It is definitely causing delays, and way too many of them, but I have yet to see a situation where someone missed a connecting flight because of a 5 - 10 min delay (max) for loading gate checked bags. If you did miss you flight because of a 5 min delay, you were cutting it too close in the first place, IMO.
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Originally Posted by AirlinesMustPay
What has been happening more and more is that the last set of passengers to board a full aircraft often don't get room for their carry ons in the overhead bins. According to what passengers are told they can have a carryon of certain dimensions and weight and also based on what they are told this may be where they keep their valuables.
If the carryons comply with the stipulated dimensions and weight and are yet taken away to be put in the cargo hold, the airline is likely to be liable for any loss of the valuables.
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The problem is not generally that the carry-ons do not comply with the "size-wise" dimensions. It is that in order to avoid fees to check bags at the ticket counter, passengers are carrying an increasing number of bags with them as "carry-ons". While I do see and understand the logic behind this, it is against all airlines rules that I have ever read. As a general rule, passengers are allowed to bring 1 carry-on bag, that meets size requirements, as well as a personal item (male/female purse, computer bag, briefcase, etc). More and more passengers are carrying 2 bags, a computer, a backpack, and a purse. Then, because no one has stopped them from carrying too much stuff, the overheads are filled before half of the airplane has even boarded. I was recently in a meeting and this very issue came up. Nothing was decided for sure on how to correct the problem, but I wouldn't be surprised if you start seeing more airline representatives at the entrance to the security lines to monitor the number of bags being carried, and also wouldn't be surprised if the fee to check a bag at the gate is soon more than it is at the ticket counter, (because you have too many, not because of something you can't control such as overheads being full). The idea here is to discourage people from trying to carry too many bags on the airplane and check the bags at the ticket counter from the start. Again, nothing was set in stone at this meeting, they were merely suggestions that came up.