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.