Southwest Airlines Now Forces Passengers To Gate-Check Bags Despite Open Bin Space — Copying Worst Boarding Tactic Of Competitors

Southwest Airlines is now forcing passengers to gate-check their carry-on bags early, claiming overhead bins are full even when plenty of space remains available.

This controversial practice, long associated with American, Delta, and United, marks a real shift triggered by Southwest’s recent adoption of assigned seating and checked bag fees, undermining their historical advantage in efficient boarding and angering customers.

Southwest Airlines used to be able to spend less time boarding their planes than other airlines, because:

1. passengers lined up ahead of time, single file, to get on board as quickly as possible to get their preferred seat, since seating was ‘first come, first served’, and
2. the airline didn’t charge for checked bags, so passengers didn’t bring as much stuff on board to avoid fees – they didn’t spend time stowing bags in the overhead bin, or discovering that the bins were full and having to gate check things at the last minute.

Fast boarding, less time on the ground, is a huge cost savings and revenue opportunity. They can fly more with fewer planes.

In 2011, when the airline was much smaller, they said that “It would cost us approximately 8 to 10 airplanes of flying per day if we were to add just a couple of minutes of block time to each flight in our schedule.”

Losing perhaps 16 aircraft a day now could cost them about as much revenue as checked bag fees generates (even if separating checked bag fees out from the fare didn’t reduce fares, which is unrealistic).

So for checked bag fees to work, they need to keep boarding just as efficient as before – even with assigned seating and passengers trying to carry belongings on board as if the plane is Noah’s Ark and whatever they can bring is necessary to save all the world’s species.

That’s why even with assigned seating they still line everyone up to board as before. Unlike American Airlines, you still need to queue in advance if you want to get on board early enough for overhead bin space.

Once onboard it’s a Hobbesian war of all against all for bin space. Flying a couple of days last week after the start of assigned seating, passengers were moving up and down the aisles trying to find space blocking the aisles.

And so Southwest Airlines has taken to following the lead of other airlines, to speed up boarding and avoid the last-minute need to gate check bags: lying to customers. Passengers are forced to gate check bags because ‘overhead bins are full’ even before bins are full. So when they get on board they see there’s actually still plenty of space.

@SouthwestAir forced a dozen of us to gate-check our carry-on to our final destination, claiming they were competely out of overhead space. Ensuring that it'll take even longer to get home. Lying directly to us to encourage people to pay for the advertised service.

Liars pic.twitter.com/GB4qZhrilO

— Matt Dillahunty (@Matt_Dillahunty) February 1, 2026

This has been a common problem for passengers on Delta, American Airlines and United. It didn’t used to happen much on Southwest, because they allowed everyone to check two bags free. Now that this has changed, carry-on confiscations became more widespread on the airline.

And nothing makes customers mad like being lied to and forced to gate check bags when it isn’t necessary. I see this on twitter as one of the two most common airline complaints (after nicked luggage) that’s accompanied by photos.

Agents do it because they don’t want to gate check bags at the last minute when it might delay the flight by a minute or two. They are afraid of getting yelled at for this by their managers.

So they start requiring passengers to gate check bags before the bins are actually full. If they waited until bins were full, it would be too late – passengers would already be on the jetbridge and maybe in the aisles of the aircraft looking for bin space.