Over the weekend I wrote that American Airlines was reportedly going to remove bag sizers from airport boarding gates. I’ve now confirmed it. This will be effective this coming Monday, October 6th. And I share the airline’s internal memo to employees about this change below.
- There will still be bag sizers in airport lobbies. If you’re unsure whether a bag is allowed, measure it there. If it’s not, you can check it in (of course at the gate you might not be charged to check it, especially once they start asking for volunteers to gate check bags).
- At the gate, agents will now use their judgment instead of deferring to an objective bag sizer that is often a little bit larger than the dimensions actually allowed.
- Gate agents are supposed to “err on the side of the customer” if a bag is slightly oversized but close!
American emphasizes to agents that “a crossbody/purse is a third item and should be consolidated before boarding.” That seems like a basic intellectual error, to me, although I realize it is the airline’s policy.
- A belt is part of your clothes, not a carry-on item. A belt that you can store items in is still a belt, and part of your clothes. A fanny pack worn across your body, basically a pocket, is part of your clothes too.
- It doesn’t require overhead bin space (your full-sized carry-on) and it doesn’t require space underneath the seat in front of you (your personal item). The whole point of the restriction is that you get space in each for one item, and that’s still the case when you have a crossbody.
- A man can wear cargo pants. Anyone can wear a jacket, even a heavy winter coat, and that doesn’t count against your carry-on allowance. So a crossbody shouldn’t, either.
Nonetheless, I actually like the sizers because it’s nice to have an objective standard to point to for what fits within allowable dimensions. I don’t want gate agents using their discretion, even if that means they sometimes ignore larger items a passenger might want to bring onboard. Of course I’ve had an American gate agent demand I show them an item fits in the sizer and then demand I check it even though it does simply because they were angry at being shown they were wrong.
With this update, those of you using bags that advertise as compliant but aren’t – for instance because bags often advertise their dimensions without including the wheels – are likely to skate by in many cases. Still, it won’t do much to argue with a gate agent.
And by the way, customers will do everything they can to make the bag fit – even if it means they won’t be able to get it out.
@hotasfo_o dont die for easy jet #fyp #viral #plane #funny ♬ original sound – sam
With this change, American follows United which announced in January 2020 that it would remove all bag sizers from gate areas. The internal memo at the time said agents should use judgment at the gate and that sizers would remain in lobbies and (some) pre‑security areas. This was supposed to “empower employees” and reduce stressful gate confrontations.
Here’s the internal American Airlines memo with the change:
Gary a cross body is a bag. You can’t bring more than two bags on. So if a crossbody is someone’s 3rd bag they have to consolidate it. End of discussion.
Here’s how you do it as a travel expert. I’ve flown American my entire life. Decades as EXP and a few as CK.
I have never once been stopped for my bag(s) in millions of miles. I walk right past the gate agent with my boarding pass, smile at them, say good morning or good evening, look them in the eye, ask how their day has been (if there is a pause), have my bags off to the other side of me where they can’t see them line of sight, and keep their attention on me not what I am carrying, and walk through like I own the place.
I also have various carry-ons that I use that I know are too big and won’t fit in the sizer, but I also KNOW MY AIRCRAFT. I know what will fit in the Embraer 175, the CRJs, the 737/A319/A320 with old and new configs. I choose my carry-on sometimes based on the aircraft for entirely that reason. I’m usually in Group 1 so that helps and don’t have to deal with finding space.
Never have I had a problem once, with many millions of miles flown, doing it this way.
Now, other airlines. Other aircraft. Other countries. I have stories for days., of course.
But when you know YOUR airline and YOUR aircraft, none of this even matters if you do it right.
American can do this because their mainline aircraft are more likely to have larger overhead bins. This is one of the benefits of flying American.
@Flight Attendant — You (and the gate agents) try telling that to my wife/mother/aunt, etc… they never seem to take it well. (I’m always like, you’d better stuff that ‘purse’ into your other two bags, or they’re gonna ‘bother’ you…) Regardless of their actual names, they each briefly become ‘Karen.’
I carry a shoulder bag which actually takes up less space than a rollerboard when turned sideways. It fits every a/c except CR7 and EMB145s, which I’m fine to gate check. But every few months I’m forced to gate check it even though I know it goes in sideways on all a/c just fine, all times when flying first to boot.
The issue of course is that when airlines tell employees to use judgement and common sense some do not.
They need to fix the sizers, not remove them. By making the sizer out of bars it’s easy for a bag to become trapped inside and difficult to remove. Solid faces on all four sides would fix that.
Since they are objecting to cross-body bags and the like this is at least partially about money–and I do not trust their judgment when there’s an incentive to say a bag is oversize. However, I have seen problematic cross-body stuff–that is a case where judgment should be applied. Can the person reasonably sit with the bag entirely in front of them? Hard to judge standing as a lot of cross-body stuff will respond to gravity and tend to fall to the side when standing, but it should be apparent when sitting.
Sorry but we aren’t happy till you are miserable and frustrated
Have a great flight 😉
@dwondermeant — Do you like watching? Because then, it can be a little ‘schadenfreude’… (oh, lookie, that passenger’s fanny-pack is going to get flagged as their 3rd item… should be interesting… and, they’re attempting Group 3, when they’re actually in Group 7! A twofer!)
I’ve seen untold numbers of times where people – usually boarding category one – have WAY above the allowable carryon allowance but still roll right on to the plane without a hitch. That would be fine except that the rest of us get extremely limited space as a result.
Yes the crossbody bag/purse is definitely a 3rd item. I use one for my phone, credit cards & other miscellaneous stuff. But it is small enough to fit into my backpack, which is actually my personal item along with my carry-on bag. So before boarding, I take out my phone for showing my boarding pass and put my purse in the backpack. Now I have only two items! 😉
makes little difference if gate agents keep forcing people to check bags even though the bins inside the plane are empty
Don’t celebrate too soon. They can replace the physical bag sizers with lidar-enabled digital cameras to size up every bag in the waiting area in seconds. If you have a smart phone with lidar, such as an iPhone, there are apps that tell you the exact dimensions of an object, such as a suitcase, just by viewing the object. I can imagine that is what’s coming next to be mounted at the boarding podium.
I don’t mind either method for enforcing sizing rules. I use an international size rollaboard and never, ever have a problem. I get ticked at the people who carry on oversized rollaboards with expansion zippers and outside pockets puffed out to the max. They take up spaces for two bags in the overhead bins.
Why not make the sizer an exact replica of the actual overhead bin of the plane being boarded?
@Sumit Mehta — Woah there, big brain; they’d need to have multiple sizers for all the aircraft variants, and even further nuances for the difference between window vs. aisle bins on the 767, and also, the first two rows of most 737 have an unusual shape, so larger rollies might not fit there, and, ugh, don’t get me started on the CRJs…
What a stupid decision. The gates are where you need sizers the most. And crossbody bags are not supposed to be worn on the flight for safety reasons so you would have to take it off and put it somewhere so yes it counts as an item.
Not sue I can send a photo, but there were a dozen or so old luggage sizers stack adjacent to the TAS Pre-Check Gate 7A at O’Hare this morning.
/Users/roamingscribe/Desktop/AA luggage sizers at O’Hare.jpg
They don’t check anyway. It’s a pet peeve how rude people are bringing huge bags.
@Bob: I’ve never had any objection from the FAs over a bag on my body. It in no way impedes me, would make not one bit of difference in an evacuation.
@BillDwyer It starts Monday 6 October
My wife’s and my experience is that they normally ignore her small cross-body bag as she wheel’s in her carry-on and her personal item (A large quilted bag with zippers.) on its top. I have my rather large photo backpack which can fit under the seat in front of me and my carry-on. Our carry-ons do meet AA’s size limits, including the wheels. Sometimes I have a camera over my shoulder. My experience with that, as it’s a large camera with an ordinary lens is that about 60% of gate agents ask me to pack it. I don’t argue, I just take off the lens and the two pieces go in my vest which is then heavy. On the plane it comes out right away. It’s the boarding dance.
If I’m stuck with extra stuff, I wear a photographer’s vest and load it up to reduce bag weight and size for non-AA airlines, particularly in Europe and Africa.
I think it helps a lot that we’re boarding first due to Executive Platinum status and normally sitting in FC or BC or we preboard to help my wife (according to how she feels that day) who does walk slowly with a cane due to fighting cancer. That said, we don’t bring 5 bags and our carry-ons are the right size, though that backpack I mentioned is a bit oversized for a personal item, though I’ve carried it all over the world on many carriers.
Gary should know as well as anyone that once you remove the incentive to economize, people…. don’t.
Bring on the Walmart duffels!