Checked baggage fees are here to stay and checking a bag remains an unattractive option — who wants to stand around a baggage carousel or risk losing your valuables when you can keep your bags with you onboard? That lethal duo has led to a proliferation of carry-on baggage over the last decade and a persistent problem: not enough space onboard.
Good luck securing overhead bin space if you are one of the last to board — chances are you will have to check your bag to your final destination. Speaking generally, the problem is actually not that there is insufficient overhead bin space or even that carriers (other than Southwest) charge to check bags. Rather, the problem is travelers often try to slip additional carry-on items past airline gate staff and onto the plane. Budget travelers cannot bear the thought of paying to check a bag and business and more frequent travelers hate the thought of lost or delayed bags (I certainly fall in this camp, even though I would never be charged a baggage fee). So overhead bins fill up.
United Airlines Takes Steps to Discourage Excess Carry-On Baggage
Up until now, if you can slip an extra bag (or four) past the poor souls whose job it is to monitor that as you enter airport security checkpoints, you’re home free — if you can get your kitchen sink onboard, great, and if not you can have it checked for free. United intends to change that.
A Flyertalker shared the following conversation:
Heard this from a United EWR “concierge” type service worker who is normally assigned to VIPs and high government offices and who is very well informed: United plans to combat excess carry on, so prevalent since the advent of checked baggage fees, in a lucrative and possible punitory way. Gate check will now require payment of the appropriate checked bag fee for a given passenger. Bag tag printers are being installed at gates to speed the process. If you manage to get an oversize carry on or in excess of the 2 permitted, be ready to be required to gate check in order to board AND pay the checked bag fee applicable to your frequent flyer status, or lack there of, and class of service and/or ultimate destination and the bag allowance granted and possibly already used at the landside bag drop…
If true, this would be a game-changer, finally discouraging the excessive carry-on items that are routinely taken aboard aircraft.
My first reaction is to support this rumored policy — in fact, this would make me hang out in the boarding area to take in the entertainment. Can you imagine the reactions?
I used to lug extra carry-on items onboard — I even got caught five years ago — but I have changed my ways and typically travel with only my Rimowa Salsa Deluxe Cabin Multiwheel and a garment bag if I am going to an event which requires a suit. In a pinch, both can fit under my seat and the items are compact enough to fit inside the overhead bin of even a small regional jet.
As an aside, my wife is typically guilty of having five or six carry-on items. Mostly small items, mind you, but she’ll certainly have to consolidate if this new policy proves true…
If United is able to pull this off, it can speed up boarding, eliminate the need to gate check bags, and actually put some fear in people if it charges more to check at the gate than at check-in or online.
But let’s face it — in the hustle and bustle of trying to get a flight boarding and out on time, it is often difficult to enforce these sorts of rules. United gate agents are already spread thin and I just cannot picture agents roaming the gate area or having the time to pull over every offender from the boarding lane. United introduced new carry-on sizers in March 2014 that were supposed to solve this very issue, but I rarely see these used and I have flown over 50,000 miles on United this year. Put another way, I bet gate agents will not like this news.
Can United Afford the Bad Press?
United’s CEO has a bad ticker and the interim CEO is trying to hold together a carrier that continues to alienate customers and perform poorly in customer satisfaction surveys.
Imagine the press if this proves to be true — I can see the headlines now, with consumer advocates moaning about UA’s corporate greed and passengers up in arms about whether the newspaper or baby bottle counts as a carry-on item.
But people get annoyed when other don’t play by the rules and if I read people right I think anyone who actually flies more than a couple times per year would be happy about this change, unless they are like my wife and enjoying taking a few extra items onboard.
What do you think? I think United can get through this and Delta and American will follow. I’d love for there to be a day when I can hang out in the United Club until the final minutes of boarding without having to worry about securing overhead bin space.
But be on the lookout for wearable luggage…
I am just shy of a million miles, so I do fly a lot. My wife and I only carry matching backpacks since we are usually stuck in economy. I like the idea of charging for gate checks, BUT, who will charge the selfish customer? If the gate agent does it, then I have to wait while she writes up the tags and the customer fumbles for a charge card? Hopefully, there will be a second agent, to the side to write them up. Will United dedicate even more staff to a gate? We’ll see.
My SCOTTeVEST just got more valuable..
In theory, I applaud the approach of charging for excess carry-ons. What I worry about is how UA, or any other airline that tries, will enforce the policy in practice. I could totally see a militaristic gate agent charging all of the poor chaps in Group 4 that have a legally-sized carry-on, but just don’t have room to store them, the fee anyway, even though it technically shouldn’t apply (kind of like the witch who charged my mom $200 to check a medical device, then yelled that she wouldn’t allow her to fly if she didn’t stop questioning her about the improper charge). But where I see the biggest problems is for passengers with connections, who sneak through an excess bag past a lax agent when boarding their first segment, but then being told they need to pay for the extra one when the agent handling the connecting flight correctly enforces the rule. Can you imagine the argument that would ensue?
Carrying your luggage on board must feel saner if you live in a world of non-stop flights! Those of us whose travel always involves at least two legs have to weigh the checked baggage fee against the “baggage” of having to schlep a vacation’s worth of belongings from gate to gate in the connecting airport. Easy enough if it’s just an overnight bag, but I don’t want to have to deal with a real suitcase while looking for lunch or the airline club in the middle of my trip. Also, checking a bag means I can have my Swiss Army knife at the other end. (If that were the ONLY reason to check the bag, I’d use the $25 to buy an extra knife at my destination instead.)
The thing that really takes up all the over head space are the ones who put both of their bags up there, even after they specifically say put you carry on up and you personal item under you seat.
I also love the idea of stowing some of my carry-on luggage under the seat in front of me, but then the airline would need to provide somewhere else for me to put my feet! I’m 6’3″, and that space is already occupied and not available for cargo.
A few years ago at New Orleans I was flying on Continental. A gate agent roamed through the gate area and was literally measuring people’s carry-on bags as we waited in the gate area. A few people had bags bigger than they should and the gate agent had a handful of baggage claim checks. The gate agent told those people they would have to check their bags and pay $25 in CASH. It didn’t look like a scam unless it was a little free enterprise on the part of the gate agents. One poor girl had no cash and had to borrow off a friend. And this was on a short flight, small plane.
Anyone who flies routinely, or even those who consistently end up in group 4 and later, also know that over head space becomes limited more quickly than it should because passengers place backpack or computer bag sized items in the overhead when they should be placed under the seat in front of them.
While it’s difficult to do on a single aisle aircraft during boarding, it would be nice if flight attendants policed this rule, thus freeing up a lot more space for roller-boards.
This has been a regular pet peeve of mine on AA because of their policy that “passengers with no roller-boards can board early”. Big surprise when everyone boards after and almost half the bin space is gone to backpacks and other smaller items. I’ve had to resort to “kindly” asking seated passengers if they would remove their smaller bags to make space.
Obviously doesn’t solve the entire problem but it would certainly help…
As a Flight Attn, I am all for this new policy, provided they enforce ALL boarding groups. It will not be fair to boarding group 4 or 5 if we just run out of space. I for one, am a proactive Flight Attn who stands in the aisle and actually watches as customers stow their bags. If I see someone put up a suitcase and then their personal item, I tell them to put it under their seat to be fair to others still boarding. Some grumble. The problem is some bring on “backpacks” as their personal item and they are literally a BODY BAG! The carry on issue is OUT OF CONTROL!!!! This has to start at the gate or United needs to place an employee at the security entrance and send them to the ticket if too many items or too large.
I support this although I’ll be amazed if it really comes to be. I also agree it would be a hoot to sit and watch people who thought they’d be able to sneak extra items aboard get nabbed. James F hit the nail on the head though, that a lot of space would remain available if people would use the space under the seat. In my experience business travelers are the worst offenders here and despite what Mark says, it is unnecessary. I am not a short man but I always place a bag under the seat in front of me—if in a window seat I then have access to important items, and as I almost always am seated in Economy Plus leg room is not much of an issue. If it is, I simply move the bag behind my legs after takeoff and have ample legroom.