Airlines have a huge customer service problem. Passengers want to bring their carry-on bag with them onto the plane. They don’t want to wait 45 minutes for it at baggage claim. They don’t want to pay the airline extra to check it. And they don’t want to be separated from their important belongings.
Most tickets let you bring a carry-on bag and a personal item with you, but only if there’s space left for them when you board.
That means you need to board earlier, and airlines charge extra for that too. You waste more time on board in an uncomfortable seat just to avoid having your bag confiscated.
But even when airlines charge you extra for something you’re already allowed to do, and there’s space available for you to do it, they’re confiscating those carry-on bags anyway.
Love the “we are all out of overhead bin space” announcement…
byu/beer_geek inunitedairlines
Why would gate attendants lie and say all the luggage compartments are full?
byu/Cassiopeia2021 indelta
This is a huge customer experience problem. Airlines demand passengers gate check their bags even when there’s still space available because:
- They don’t track the space closely the gate agent is mostly guessing, sometimes aided by computer estimates.
- They don’t want to have to gate check a bag that’s already on the aircraft with a passenger since that takes time at the last minute just prior to departure, and risks delaying the flight a couple of minutes.
- They want to start gate checking bags when there’s still space because there may be passengers on the jetbridge with carry-ons who will use it. If they waited until the bins were actually full, there would be passengers boarding with bags that wouldn’t fit.
Ultimately gate agents do not get rewarded for helping customers find space for their bags. They get yelled at for last minute gate checking of bags. The incentives here are for an airline’s employees to stick it to their own customers. That is perverse and needs to be solved.
Instead, it’s going to get worse. Southwest Airlines flights don’t have to gate check bags nearly as often because they offer free checked bags – customers aren’t trying to bring as much onto the plane. But in two months that ends. Southwest also hasn’t installed bigger oversized bins on as many planes as some of their competitors.
Ironically, this is actually going to create huge problems for Southwest since the systems at some of their hubs like Houston aren’t even set up to accept as many gate checked bags as they’re going to demand.
But the worst surely has to be United because of the extra free charged for a carry-on bag that they’re reneging on!
- Since United Airlines basic economy fares don’t allow you to bring on a standard carry-on, just a personal item like a purse or laptop bag that fits under your seat, they are literally charging extra for overhead bin space with the ticket.
- You’re only actually buying a ‘license to hunt’ for the space. But when the space is there, and they confiscate your carry-on anyway, they’re not even honoring the license they’ve sold you.
When a United gate agent told me I had to gate check my carry-on I just brought it on the plane with me anyway and stored it in a bin near my seat. Was that wrong?
There was still plenty of space! If you’re on boarding group 3 when they start demanding passengers gate check bags, there’s almost certainly still bin space available. That’s just math.
Confiscating carry-ons unnecessarily is one of the things that outrages passengers most. Their bag has been taken and it didn’t even need to be! There was plenty of overhead space left! Stop the madness. And stop it, especially, at United Airlines where you have to pay a higher fare to bring on the carry-on bag in the first place.
One quick edit, Gary: “Airlines have a huge *consumer* service problem.” Because passengers are consumers–the ‘customers’ are the majority shareholders. The top executives (their mercenaries) know this–and they’re rewarded for serving *those* customers. Same goes for hotels–the guests are peasants–the franchisees and shareholders are the ‘customers.’ These mega-corps do not care about consumers. That is why they do these counterintuitive policies (with carry-ons, etc.) Expect more Elliott (mis)Management types to step in to all these companies, smash-and-grab, then leave us passengers/guests disappointed with limited recourse (take it or leave it, nonsense). We deserve better.
Kirby has a serious fixation on charging passengers for things unless he can see a way to monetize those things. I suspect that if Mrs. Kirby and the little Kirby’s were required by company rules to fly coach then the economy experience would suddenly improve.
People should quit fly airlines that do that. Enough people do not quit those airlines so there is little negative feedback to correct the problem. People just put up with it and get disgruntled.
The folks with status or the credit cars get an early boarding group and a free carryon. It would make sense to put put those who pay for a carryon in the next boarding groups. That leaves the folks boarding last who only have a personal item and they don’t need bin space, although some do clog up the bins given the chance.
On the soapbox yet again. Gary you provide a lot of really good info but please quit posting articles pontificating about the way you want the world to be (too many topics to mention BTW) even though it isn’t going to change anything. BTW, just because you don’t like the fact airlines force people to gate check bags when they estimate (rightly or wrongly) that bins will be full doesn’t mean there hasn’t been extensive planning, modeling and analytics to show that is the most effective way to deal with it.
I have zero sympathy for people whining about being forced to gate check a bag then finding bins with plenty of space. In the future buy up to an earlier boarding group if you want to ensure overhead space. I have NEVER been asked to gate check a bag and AA usually announces something like “group 6 or higher we likely won’t have space so we will check your bag for free”. It is much more of a problem if the entire plane is delayed as opposed to a few people whining they had to check their precious bag and their was actually space for it!
Get over it PLEASE and focus on ACTUAL news. Hate to say it but you are well behind OMAAT and even TPG in that regard. They NEVER post these type of opinion pieces (repeatedly I may add although this may be just you hitting AI to churn out content) and also don’t use Reddit as a source or publish “National Enquirer” style stories. Sigh – so sad.
This is one of the times when “we the people” should have our government create laws to kick the airlines in the teeth to stop this madness.
JetBlue got this right at the time when their Blue Basic fares did not include a bag:
If you traveling on a Blue fare or above and your bag was confiscated, you were entitled to $25 in flight credit.
Gary, for that gate checked bag that you didn’t check, did that count towards the lost luggage count for the airline? Can you make a lost luggage claim, as long as you aren’t carrying that bag to the lost luggage office? Asking for a friend.
I’m sure if someone or everyone did that often, they would check the cameras and see that the bag that was gate checked was carried off the airplane.
The most likely way this gets fixed is that carry-on bags require the purchase of a separate bag pass before boarding with the number of passes limited to the rated overhead bin space.
If an aircraft has a rated capacity of, say, 100 carry-on bags, 100 carry-on passes are available for purchase. $75 if purchased in advance, $100 day of departure.
As I’ve gotten older and my time more elastic, I’ve come to enjoy checking bags. 45 minutes to save my back from carryon? Yes, please.
At first, this one felt like the April Fools post, but, since it’s United, it was just cruel enough to be real.
My issue with checking a bag that if you experience irregular operations it complicates the situation. Suddenly your bag may not be traveling with you.
It’s not that hard. Either get the airline’s co-branded credit card or join their FF program and you won’t be boarding with the last two groups.
Airlines are never, ever going to give up bag fees and/or potentially delay flights because of passengers swimming upstream with bags.
If the baggage hijinks keep the poor off one of my preferred airlines, I’m all for it.
OK, folks. For years, I heard universities with inadequate parking suggest thecsolution is to get there earlier. Nope, that’s a “how I can be better off” solution, not a real solution. Suggesting people get an earlier boarding group will help them, but doesn’t solve the issue. I do think that actually enforcing the limits on carried on items would be a great start. There’s less incentive for the “better safe than sorry” early cutiff if cutoffs are less often needed.
The problem begins and ends with the fact that the airlines avoid taxes on their revenue by charging for baggage – whether it be carry on or checked. This problem is easily solved by Congress and the President getting together to pass laws/regulations that all income from passenger related to baggage is included in the income connected to the passenger ticket. Some smart folks invented the way around the federal tax (which incidentally funds airport infrastructure costs) by not including the fees in the ticket revenue. It can easily be stopped.
Was on a flight from Chicago ORD to Dulles IAD and saw multiple white males bring large suitcases which had to be rotated the long way in order to fit in the overhead bins since they could not fit facing forward, thus taking up space from 3-4 small carry-on suitcases. Entitlement you think? Obviously the gate agents & Flight attendants don’t want to challenge these entitled a-holes but will challenge minorities or old folks who they can bully easier. Just an observation.
Americans voted for less regulation and more powers for companies to do what they want to consumers. Also, they voted for no new taxes, so forget taxing add-on fees to the same level of fare.
Deal with it.
I have to wonder what United’s view would be on a chargeback from someone on a Basic Economy ticket who paid that fee and then got forced to gate-check. My guess is that they might start smashing guitars in retaliation. /s
As you said, it’s one thing to say “Yeah, we realize that not all folks might be able to fit their allowed carry-ons in the overhead bins for a variety of reasons” and another to also say “…and so those of you who paid for that space? Touch nuggets, no refunds.”
Gary, I know you don’t control the ads on your site. But on this page, there I just saw a Southwest “no hidden fees” ad. I can’t believe that they are still posting ads for this.
@Guflyer — Some of those changes haven’t taken effect yet (like, they won’t start charging for checked bags until May 28, 2025, supposedly, and the new ‘assigned’ seating, is scheduled for late 2025/early 2026), so perhaps, they already spent their digital advertising budgets, and are just simply too lazy to change course and to lie about some other topic. Ah, marketing!