Passengers Are Being Forced To Gate Check Bags—Even As Airlines Leave Overhead Bins Empty. Here’s Why It’s Getting Worse

Mar 21 2025

f you aren’t at the boarding gate when your flight is called, you probably aren’t going to get overhead bin space. If the flight is full, and you aren’t among the first half of passengers on the plane, your carry-on bag is likely going to be taken away from you and gate checked.

Half the time when you get onto the plane, though, you still see overhead bins with plenty of space. You were lied to! The bins weren’t full after all. So what gives?

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Marriott Guest Finds Lewd Scribble On Bulk Toiletries—Front Desk Shrugs: ‘I Saw It’

Mar 20 2025

A guest at Marriott’s Courtyard Battle Creek in Michigan discovered a lewd drawing on the wall-mounted toiletries that was presumably left by a previous guest.

Housekeeping either doesn’t clean and refill the bottles, or saw it and didn’t care enough to change them out when turning the room. Since the guest reports that showing a photo to the front desk elicited a shrug, either option seems equally likely.

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Can Southwest Airlines Handle Paid Seats, Bag Fees, And Boarding Changes—All At Once—Without A Total Operational Meltdown?

Mar 20 2025

Are all of the changes Southwest Airlines is making too much, too fast? Not for the passengers who have been largely negative on this like checked bag fees and basic economy restrictions, one thing after another taken away from customers with nothing really added that makes life better.

Here what I’m troubled by is whether they’ve taken on too many projects to quickly in order to actually pull them off without significant service disruptions and customer inconvenience.

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Southwest Flyers Feel Betrayed—And American Airlines Quietly Makes Its Biggest Status Match Offer Ever

Mar 20 2025

Everyone is mad mad at Southwest Airlines for abandoning its business model, customer focus, and core principles. They’re laying off employees, outsourcing, eliminating free checked bags, moving to (paid) assigned seats and devaluing Rapid Rewards.

So now is the perfect time for another airline to go after their customers aggressively, court them, and win them over. American Airlines is doing that – but just isn’t really telling anyone about it?

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