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’ …