Watch These Baggage Handlers Toss Luggage From a Plane — Here’s What You Can Do About It

by Gary Leff

It’s often been said that there are two kinds of luggage: carry on and lost. Add a third kind to the mix… damaged.

When you check a bag your things may get stolen. Employees may hide drugs in your luggage.

I avoid checking bags whenever possible because I don’t trust United’s baggage handlers not to get caught in the cargo hold and I don’t want my bags there anyway since British Airways has had to ask staff to stop urinating in the cargo holds.

Qatar Airways may promise you won’t be served by grandmothers but that’s also a problem, if their baggage handlers were grandmothers they might treat your luggage more gingerly than this: (HT: @zainman)

This is more common than you’d think.

Here are Alaska Airlines baggage handlers in San Jose, California playing a game of toss the luggage reportedly for half an hour while other employees cheered them on.

Here are baggage handlers playing toss the luggage off a easyJet flight at London’s Luton airport.

Here’s video of Air Canada baggage handlers tossing gate checked luggage.

I never want to have to gate check bags. I also hate to board first. I don’t want to spend 20 minutes on the plane more than necessary, especially in a coach seat. I’d rather work a few more minutes in the lounge or spend the time picking up a bottle of water or snack near the gate.

The key is to not be last, or rather not to be among the last to board so that you don’t wind up being asked to gate check your bag.

Strategies to avoid having to gate check your bag:

  • Make sure the bag isn’t too large (that it meets the airline’s regulation specs, even fully packed and bulging).

  • Plan ahead. Earn elite status with the airline you fly or one of their partners, or sign up for the co-brand credit card of the airline you tend to fly the most.

  • Consider buying priority boarding it may seem frivolous or a waste but it can also be had for just $10.

  • Just board early. Not every gate agent will enforce the boarding order.

  • If asked to gate check, remain polite, mention perhaps that you’re connecting on a separate ticket to an airline your carrier doesn’t have an interline baggage agreement with and you could at least try to find some space?

  • Once on the plane, take any space you can find don’t wait until you get all the way to your seat if you’re in the back of the cabin. You might get glares, but there may be room in the first class bins and that carries the added benefit of your not having to schlep the bag all the way to the back and also that it’s already near the front of the plane when you’re ready to disembark.

  • Worst cast be very nice and again polite and ask a flight attendant at the front of the aircraft if you might be able to store your bag in a closet.

Here’s the singer from Puddle of Mudd riding the baggage carousel in Denver.

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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  1. Flight attendants routinely instruct (coach) passengers not to use the first class bins. Obviously you know this, yet suggest we do it anyway?

  2. Is that a luggage or cleaning service throwing garbage? As a frequent flyer surely you can differentiate, tough it means there won’t be “news!” for the clickbait….

  3. “Once on the plane, take any space you can find don’t wait until you get all the way to your seat”

    No wonder american passengers are rude and lack of courtesy to others! They were encouraged! No wonder US3 FAs are very self entitled. Their passenger are like you….

  4. Gary, those don’t look like bags. Why would baggage handlers ever be handling baggage from the passenger cabin???

  5. @Mike D – always follow flight attendant instructions, it really depends on the airline, i almost NEVER see (hear) that on American

  6. Gary, If you were flying in F or C and had “work[ed] a few more minutes in the lounge or spen[t] the time picking up a bottle of water or snack near the gate” and boarded the plane only to find that you had no space to stow your carry-on because the bins in the F or C seating area were full with bulging carry-ons from Y passengers, wouldn’t you be justifiably miffed that you were not getting the F or C service for which you had paid?

  7. No Economy Class Pax should be putting Any Luggage in the FC Luggage Compartments unless the Cabin Crew instructs You to or making sure that ALL FC Passengers have been boarded and Their Luggage has been accommodated. Telling People to do Otherwise is ridiculous and is only asking for Confrontation. Where You come upo with some of these asinine suggestions is Beyond Me. You purchase a Coach ticket, Your bags Belong in Coach……and I do Not give Two S*ts Who You think You Are.

  8. Lol at “Just board early. Not every gate agent will enforce the boarding order.” Dick move.

  9. Not on Gary~ keep your crap off my real estate; it will be removed (by me) to the aisle, and left to a FA to sort out who it belongs to. Do you really want to do the Walk of Shame from 63C to pick it up? This is a notably American habit, beyond rudeness, bringing out the inner pig. Usually because you’re too cheap to check any luggage.

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