Last month I shared that there’s an American Airlines gate agent in Dallas who doesn’t think the airline goes far enough to police passengers who crowd the gate and try to board before it’s their turn. Early boarders get rejected with an audible tone. But this ‘gate lice’ still wastes everyone’s time in line.
So they’ve started announcing that anyone who tries to board before their group is called will have their carry-on bags forcibly checked.
And this renegade gate agent is developing a following. The practice is spreading – across airlines even. Perhaps because of all of the positive attention they’ve gotten!
A Delta Air Lines gate agent at New York JFK is now doing this, too.
This morning I had a short hop from JFK. During zone 1 boarding, the GA told 2 people “you board out of order, your bag gets checked.” There was no option given to wait for their turn, the tags were printed, affixed, and instructions given to leave them.
No pink tags, full up “take your ass to baggage claim” sentence. Another GA actually walked down the jet bridge to ensure they were left. I heard her say to the boarding agent “we can’t see past that last turn, so I did what I had to do.”
Keeping people out of line until it’s their turn to board, and keeping passengers from slowing down the boarding process, benefits everyone.
- Gate agents often require passengers to check their carry-on bags even when there’s still overhead bin space on board. They want to prevent the need to bring any bags off the aircraft when passengers find there’s no more space. That takes critical minutes right before the aircraft’s doors are supposed to close, and they don’t want to be yelled at for missing an exactly on-time departure.
- These agent figure, why not transfer that burden from later-boarding passengers onto the ones trying to skip the line? There’s a certain justice in it, since the only reason to board early is to get that precious overhead bin space in the first place.
Comments on this blog and elsewhere across the internet have been almost universally positive for these rogue agents, taking a real problem of incivility at the gate – which makes the travel experience worse for everyone – into their own hands. If their airline isn’t going to solve it, these heroes will.
Great idea! There are so many people that will never want to pay up to be first…. but wont have a problem getting on in front of you. Thats is THEFT. Good for those gate agents. It should be universal.
In the year 2035, we will be hoping for that. Instead, they will deny boarding and threaten to put you on an airline-wide no fly list.
Why not a smile and not yet for that boarding group, please stand this way (and motioning)?
That looks like the interior of now demolished Terminal 2 (formerly Delta/Northwest terminal) at JFK airport. Once a Port Authority police said that photos are not allowed but that one photo already taken is allowed.
Nice photo to see.
The problem with this approach is that it is a poor customer service culture. Imagine Singapore Airlines, ANA, or Japan Airlines doing something like this? You wouldn’t see that.
no, gate agents shouldn’t be making up their own rules and procedures, regardless of the airline.
AA cared enough about people boarding out of line to enhance their boarding system to identify those people. If DL cares, they should do it too.
and the airline should detail the procedures that should happen if you board out of line.
simply saying, “we aren’t boarding your zone yet” is more than sufficient for the vast majority of people. using M16s with every customer is not only not necessary but it degrades the experience for everyone
The irony of this new de facto policy is that it could counterintuitively INCREASE gate lice in certain situations due to strategic behavior. Some passengers (including me) actually prefer to have the carry-on bag checked to baggage claim from the origin airport, especially if there is a connection and I have already checked a large bag (because it means not having to drag the carry-on bag all the way across one or more terminals during the layover and I am already going to baggage claim anyway).
Whenever Delta asks for gate checking volunteers I am always first in line, but sadly on many flights they don’t ask for volunteers at all. For those like me who prefer to have the carry-on bag gate checked, pretending to hop the line strategially
and making sure to get “flagged” may now be the only way to get the gate check.
If this is to be the new policy then they should ALWAYS first ask for volunteers. This is a pareto improvement (I am happy and those who have only a carry-on and hate going to baggage claim are less likely to face full bins and forced checking).
Thank you, Gary, for writing your article, “Rogue American Airlines Gate Agent’s Viral Carry-On Crackdown Hits Delta—Line Jumpers Now Losing Bags Everywhere.” You highlight a troubling situation: when a confused elderly passenger carrying life-saving medication in their carry-on accidentally attempts to board with group five instead of group six, the new standards of customer service at Delta Air Lines and American Airlines gate agents is to forcibly take the passenger’s carry-on and send it to their final destination. This punishment seems aimed at the passenger rather than ensuring their well-being.
Later, when the medically fragile passenger experiences an asthma attack, a diabetic crisis, or severe chest pain during the flight, the gate agent may unwittingly feel responsible for contributing to the passenger’s distress or even their death. One can only wonder if the gate agent offers a dismissive remark like, “Sucks to be you today,” before hastily ushering the baggage-free passenger down the jetway by kicking them in their ass.
Simple, people that try to jump the boarding process should be sent back to board with their group. IME (which is considerable) this biggest “gate lice problem?” Older infrequent flyers in first that go running into the boarding lanes with preboards or often before preboards line up. I’ve even seen them block crews from going on.
Now it’s certainly ok to get to the gate early and stand NEAR the lane to ensure that you can board first and have bags above your seat, particularly if in a bulkhead. But not jump into the line.
I’ve recently become CK (how is quite the mystery to me) and the biggest benefit is stepping beyond these morons that think the world revolves around them. Yesterday at MIA a couple tried to step in front of me and the Premium Services rep until the Premium Services rep asked them to get out of the line.
Luggage Nazis: no carry-on luggage for you.
I appreciate the new ‘beeps’ at AA; it feels like accountability, but no, the vigilantism by the power-tripping gate agent is not appropriate. So, once again, I’m with @Tim Dunn on this. Folks should follow procedures; often, they’re there for a reason.
That’s right, @derek, the now demolished JFK T2; I’ll say, it wasn’t pretty at the end, but that old terminal and T3, the ole Pan Am ‘flying saucer,’ bring back good memories over the decades.
@jns — Great reference! “Serenity now!”
Pigs are flying
I’m with 1990
Should you board out of turn? Of course not.
Realistically, people are going to. What should be done about them? Only as much as what the airline deems appropriate (in this case a beep).
Gate agents should always be empowered to bend the rules to help a customer but never the empowered to make up their own more punitive rules.
Sad to see this happening at highly international and business heavy JFK where boarders out of order may have a language barrier or may have been busy on a call and have missed the boarding announcement
IMMEDIATELY TERMINATE THE EMPLOYMENT OF ANY EMPLOYEE WHO IS MORE PUNITIVE THAN PRESCRIBED
Give a minion power and it will be used maliciously. Sad.
To the comment about confused, elderly passenger above: they can generally pre-board, and such an infirm person is unlikely to be able to lift their bag into the overhead anyway, or retrieve meds, so makes sense to have them in their second article.
As to the general gate lice issue, some airports have horrid PA audio, and some also have no visual indication as to current boarding group. I could see how some.gate lice occurrences are unintentional.
Respect My Authoritah!
With many airlines, they preboard “people with disabilities or those who need assistance or extra time to get down the jetway” but in many cases there are folks who preboard when they don’t need or qualify (we have all seen those same folks jump out of their seats and have no issues on the other end), but this way they get to board before their actual group and assure themselves of overhead space. It seems that with more punitive action by the GA is going to have the unintended consequence of having even more people preboard, since it’s all on the honor system of whether you feel you need extra time or assistance.
This is ridiculous. Those agents should be fired. It’s not up to them to make rules like this. What awful people.
Sounds like these people got the message from a President T where they can make up rules and apply them “as they see fit” . A civilized society applies rules equally, they do not discriminate and give a dictator power that when that dictator is not authorized to have that power.
Bet you these GA would be upset if the Airlines made up rules against them and would force the Union to back them up. Has AA’s union for GA agreed to this?
It’s idiotic. My wife needs help with her bags. She is elderly. We are on the same PNR, but groups more than one apart. They always let us board together, even though the gate beeps. If they try and check her medications on her cabin bag (not even a regular carryon) they’ll have to call the police.
Hurray for the agents!
We check our bags & then rogue group
thinks they can bring all the own on board…
It’s about time, same thing with wheelchairs, sixteen passengers on wheel chairs & at arrival they all run…
favorite word of an old ex-broadcaster, HUH??? After decades with loud headphones, Gate announcements are like Swahili, a loud mumble, then all of a sudden people start rushing. I don’t want ‘early boarding,’ I’m content to wait. It would take one monitor posted by the Gate with the Group # coming up next …
Maybe a compromise: Instead of forcibly checking the offender’s bag, simply involuntarily downgrade them to the very LAST boarding group ! Should be a relatively easy IT ‘enhancement’ …
Is D0 still a concern? Haven’t heard that mentioned lately.
It’s going to be interesting to see what event causes the airlines to start firing any employee caught doing this: a viral video of the racist gate agent of the racist airline grabbing the bag of a black passenger or the wrongful death lawsuit when someone’s meds are forcibly checked (because any self righteous gate agent on a power trip probably isn’t interested in waiting for you to remove your meds).
If the airlines and the baggage handlers did a better job with the bag process, More people would check bags. But these days it’s such a dice roll. At the VERY least, your bag could be delayed for a long time as the laboriously slow process of bringing the bags to belts grinds on into a long wait. But many times the bags are damaged or lost. There’s a reason that all airline personnel must keep their bags with them on the plane at all times — the AIRLINES know that the checked baggage process sucks and is highly unreliable.
Aren’t there items that are supposed to be carried on, not checked, like anything with a lithium battery? Forcing a passenger’s carry-on into the cargo hold could violate safety rules, or even bring a plane down if a battery fire starts in the cargo hold.
Maybe if they made the announcements clear instead they sound like they come out of broken McDonalds intercom so you have no choice but to get close to know what the heck is going on
@ETraveler this kind of uncivilized pax behavior never would occur on an airline like JAL, ANA, or Singapore
My favorite analogy to announcements was the one where someone here said they were like the teacher in Peanuts, classic!
But yes, I agree with many above in hoping we can find an official solution rather than GAs taking matters into their own hands. Slippery slope.
If I have to live with a President who can just make up rules on the fly, I can’t criticize a gate agent trying to make flying fairness great again.
I’m good with it.
Former airline employee here (not as a GA) as well as a fellow traveler who is usually in the back of the boarding groups, and I’m all for it. Obviously, this gate agent is NOT overstepping, as they weren’t fired. Seeing comments here trashing gate agents, calling them “minions” is appalling. GAs rightfully have a great deal of say over how to manage the line and there is a LOT to manage that Joe Traveler is blissfully unaware of.
We can usually tell the honest mistakes from the entitled a-holes and of course we’ll bend to accommodate passengers with genuine special needs. But speaking for myself in any of the jobs I’ve worked, airline or otherwise, entitled customers pushing in front of everyone else are the absolute worst. Your money/ethnicity/politics/job/parental status/need to get from A to B do not make you special over everyone else. We’re all on the same plane, we’re all getting to destination B at the same time. Chill out FFS.
It says in the article WHY a “please sir, you aren’t in this boarding group, please stand over there”. It says gate lice for a reason, nobody reaches for the “oh but the confused/elderly” when the term is used. If you aren’t boarding out of line, it won’t affect you other than speeding your boarding process up.
Stop with the whataboutisms and political irrelevancies.
GA don’t WANT to have these confrontations, but since enough people are disrespectful actions, the person in charge there, your “minions” if you will, here we are.
Well done.
One has to ask why the airlines don’t have enough overhead space to accommodate their allowance of carry-on bags. Imagine allowing more passengers onboard than seats available! Either make more space or reduce the carry-on limits so that if everyone stays within the rules of carry-ons for that particular aircraft, there will be a “seat” for each carry-on bag. Addressing the bigger picture and the main cause of the problem would solve this issue so we can focus on a nice flight no matter if we are old or young.
@Unintimidated — Woah, there partner! We agree in-part. But, not everyone is a centi-millionaire either. Bah! And, unless you live in a dystopian ‘at-will’ state (usually, the ‘red’ ones), you can’t just ‘fire’ anyone on a whim, nor should you. If you actually work with and/or manage other people, we know that you and your companies spend countless resources training, retraining, and investing in actual people. Personnel is not a ‘toy’ that we just throw around for fun or spite. They are human beings, deserving of dignity, mutual respect, and real support. They have families and dreams, too. If we treat them well, they often do good work, and in return, they make us, the company, the shareholders, the clients, more money, and maybe even ‘make a difference’ in the world. So, I’d say, re-train them, if they abuse power once or twice; if it’s a real pattern, then maybe then, there’s actual cause for termination, or a mutual parting of ways. *wink*
@Xander — Your concern is valid. I’ve said that the ‘fish rots at the head’ meaning the example set by our leaders definitely trickles down to every aspect of society. I am saddened for what the kids are witnessing these days. We/they deserve better. Where did all the adults go? Bring back guardrails.
I guess I’m okay with this. I still wish something could be done about people just standing in the way when you’re trying to board. It seems like as soon as the announcement is made that boarding is going to start, everybody just starts crowding the gate area. Then, when it is legitimately your time to board, you have to shove through all the people to get to the actual boarding line. That’s annoying.
I’m OK with this. The triggered liberals are laughable, however. Whatever happens in the World they equate it with Trump. While I don’t care for him I care for them a lot less.
The glaring problem with this is the lithium batteries that these people were going to carry on, will now be down in the hold.
@cairns – Get a life. There’s nobody blaming Trump here.
The problem for gate agents is that they have to enforce the rules as part of their job. If they let people go, they could get fired. They spend all day being talked down to by passengers. If you can’t respect people who help get you to you destination safely, then please don’t travel.
we are priority so we board AA with group one. boarding times on your paper ticket are generally 30-45 mins prior to departure BUT if you are in the later groups why not be more realistic and print boarding times sequentially. say group 8-9 15 mins after group one
upside down and backwards
If you try to cheat, you should be forced to check your bags. This is more fair and simply forcing everyone in zone six that waited patiently to check their bags due to lack of overhead space.
In a way, I can understand how some may try to resist the gate agent gate checking all roller carry-on bags in later boarding groups by trying to board early. If enough passengers did this and were slow to move, the boarding would slow and the dream of the gate agent of getting the airplane loaded on time would be shattered. Sort of like an ad hoc passenger union doing a work slow down. Quick, easy loading requires cooperation from most, if not all, people at the gate. To single out groups, such as those designated for later boarding, for what is perceived as punishment, may not always end well.
Thanks to @jns for his recent comment, I came back here to see and laugh at @cairns response that I had missed. Sorry, @Alex, I was actually blaming the President, in-part, because of the bad example he has set, time and time again, namely, abusing his power, defying norms and the rule of law as opposed to the rule of man, never taking responsibility for his own actions or failures, constantly punching-down instead of building-up others, a plethora of bad-faith tactics, especially many of the common logical fallacies, gish-galloping, distraction tactics, manufactured crises, pretextual reasons for bad policies that harm people, generalized corruption, etc., all that, in the aggregate, leads to this misbehavior on a person-to-person level. It affects boarding processes. It affects families, parent and sibling relationships, etc. Yes, the through-line may seem attenuated to some, but it’s definitely there. If the President does it, people will see it, and others do start to think it’s ok, even when it is not. We humans tend to copy each other’s example. You know this. I know this. Even @cairns knows it, but won’t recognize it anytime soon, until it negatively affects him personally, but by then, it’s simply too late. Then, dictatorship is here, and you often cannot escape it. It’s not alarmist or over-reacting; it’s just thinking a head a little, and getting mentally prepared, so we’re not in shock when it gets worse and worse incrementally (frog boiling). That’s why I said above, ‘the fish rots at the head.’ So, no, I did not explicitly reference #45/47, but @cairns did read-between-the-lines and knew I attacked his hero, so he had to pretend to appeal to us all to ‘not get political,’ but what he really meant was to self-censor, so that he doesn’t have to read any opposing views to his own. Also, I think he’s based in Australia, or at least like it there, since he chose an Oz city as his moniker, which is ironic because I do very much blame Rupert M. for a lot of what got us here, the rise of fascism in the USA and abroad, because of all the right-wing propaganda by his media empire. Anyway, hope y’all enjoyed this counter-rant. Bah!