The Carry-On Con: Why Airlines Keep Forcing Passengers To Check Carry-on Bags For No Good Reason [Roundup]

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About Gary Leff

Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel - a topic he has covered since 2002. Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »

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Comments

  1. “Blame the…” and “your tribe” …oof. Your words, not mine.

    ‘If those (bigots) could read, they’d be very upset.’

  2. Regarding the FB elite loss of access to Delta comfort+: big deal. Delta never honored it before, and I’ve not been less than 20 deep on the upgrade just. In any case, from my perspective, this “premium” airline has refused its legal duty of care, claiming that its decision to involuntary downgrade me is the responsibility of the European originating airline to reimburse, then refusing to reply when said airline forwards the request. And it’s not like the regulation is ambiguous on this point.

    Their crappy treatment isn’t worth the premium. So, I ain’t hurt: that’s codifying what should be common knowledge: avoid DL, and if you end up on DL, remember that they will, at least in my experience, use almost every dirty trick to profit off of you. So act accordingly.

  3. That’s cool that they tried to solve the sinking issue bayou-sing pilings for the new terminal at MSY.

    (I’ll see mysef out)

  4. Here’s the problem. The gate agent doesn’t know whether bin space will run out but if it does that’s likely going to force the flight to leave late. So gate agents proactively prevent the problem. You can’t have your cake and eat it too. You can have gate agents not force gate check but be willing to accept late flights when it becomes a cluster fu&K as people try to swim upstream with bags. Choose your poison.

  5. @George: Are gate agents unable to count?

    I know the count can’t be exact, but could not also a FA be tasked with stopping more bags from coming on the plane at the door if the bins fill up when they are still coming down the jetway?

  6. On the overhead space issue, we know why gate agents don’t care so much about ‘your’ bag–they’re hustling to get everyone on-board and keep their schedules–they overworked and underpaid, so they ‘work their wage,’ so to speak. Gary has already reported on this in his earlier post (which he linked above). My hope is that passengers continue to highlight the issue via social media or complaints to the airline, which may help get the message across that we’d actually like to try to put our bags up first, even if we need to eventually gate-check. Give us the option, please.

  7. I’d take the pink tag, walk down the jetway and simply carry my bag on. But then, I usually board fairly early.

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