The seats are assigned. People have been standing in line for 15 minutes now. Why on earth would anyone want to stand there, when they could just sit and wait until the line clears?
I understand wanting to get off a plane ASAP, but boarding? You just end up sitting on the plane, waiting for everyone else to get on.
The seats are assigned, the baggage compartments are self-serve.
But you can fit your hand-luggage under the seat in front
That fact doesn’t do you much good if you have a carry-on. And most everyone is trying to get by with a carry-on and a personal bag to avoid checked bag fees.
Isn’t “carry on” just the American name for “hand luggage”? As in you’re only getting one free bag which has to be small enough to fit under the chair anyway, right?
No, the carry-on is a piece of luggage that can be stored in the overhead compartment (assuming there’s room, hence the waiting in line). In addition you can bring a personal item (backpack/purse). It’s those bags being put up top as well where the dick moves come in since, on a full flight, there’s not enough space up there and the passengers who boarded before you have put BOTH their carry-on and personal item up there.
At the cost of leg room.
You can bend your legs under the chair? Obviously I’m exaggerating but I don’t think it really takes away that much of the tiny amount of leg room you get anyway!
With the backpack I have, I do lose a good part of my leg space from having my backpack underneath the seat in front of me. That’s why I sometimes pull my backpack out and then set it down in front of me, but not underneath the seat in front of me; this lets me stretch/move my legs more than before.
Maybe you can, I need that space for feet.
I don’t know how people can stand putting an item under the seat in front of them. I’m not even tall and I sure as hell need that space for my feet.
I will always do everything in my power to NOT check a bag and have them lose it. So I bring a roller bag and a backpack.
I always check my bag and haven’t had any go missing in nearly 15 years. It’s a lot better with the bar-coded tags and automation.
Lucky. I stopped checking bags when the baggage handlers stole from my locked suitcase.
Wish I had your luck. I’ve had issues three times with checked bags in the last 15 years.
I didn’t realize this factor until I started traveling with my wife, who packs much more than me. I’ve always fit everything into a single personal item that goes under the seat, which has always meant casually reading a book until my zone is nearly finished boarding
A long time ago most airlines checked at least one bag free. I used to always do this and as op suggests, not stand in line. It was great not having to take a bag through security and haul it around through airports and connecting flights, and avoid the stress of if the overhead space would run out.
But airlines have done everything in their power to make boarding and the whole flying process miserable in attempt to suck every dollar they can from you for their upgrades and priority boarding.
I do often take advantage of the airlines offer to “we expect a very full flight, overhead space is limited, and will check your bag for free to your final destination”
Yup at this point I call that a free checked bag. Oh no… Out of space? Guess I’ll just have to be the hero and ditch my bag…
Sidenote people who do things like throw their coats up there when they’ve announced there is limited space are dicks.
Yup at this point I call that a free checked bag.
Free ? With the new Ryan air policy, it’s not free anymore
That’s how they run out of volunteers and need to pick tribute like Hunger Games.
im 6+ feet tall, where is the coat going if not the overhead? what’s in your bag, a coat?
Yes. The overhead is for the carry-on bags. If there is space after everyone has gotten on the plane, then go for it, throw the coat up there. But if you use overhead space for a coat when they announce that space is limited and you see them forcing people to check bags, then that’s a jerk move for sure.
I pack my coat in my bag. If it doesn’t fit, I wear it on the plane. If that doesn’t work, then it’s time to start thinking about checking a bag from the start.
oh, they’ll check my coat now? every time i ask they say it’s for bags.
wearing the coat for an 8 hour flight works if you’re staying in the same climate but I travel longitudily a lot.
i like how you skirted around your own bullshit rule by putting your coat in a bag.
I… put my coat inside my bag. Whether a carry-on or checked. Even if I go to a cold climate I will have my bags before I walk outside the terminal. I can stop, open my bag, and grab my coat. I don’t know how that’s skirting around it.
If you don’t want to wear it, cool - then put it in your carry-on or hold it for the flight. At the very least wait until everyone has boarded and there is room. Taking up space in the overhead while people are still boarding is selfish, it’s saying “My bag and my coat deserve more space than the next person’s single bag”.
Coats take space in the overhead whether they’re in a bag or not.
If you don’t need your coat to board the plane then you’re lucky.
None of the airlines have a rule about coats in the overhead so you’re fighting on a hill that doesn’t even exist.
I just flew with 2 kids and 4 carry ons. We had to go to the service desk to check 2 car seats anyway, so I asked the lady if we could gate check our carry ons while we were there. They did it free of charge. I don’t know if all airlines/ airports will do it, but Delta did. It was super convenient to not have to lug around 4 bags through security and around the airport/ layover airport while chasing 2 kids. Unfortunately, I’m flying United back who only allows a “personal item” so I’m assuming that’s not going to be an option on my return flight.
and then wait for the baggage at the other end? no thanks! carry on luggage I get to walk straight out no waiting
Now they’ve even started offering this at the check-in counter! Critically it’s after the “pay us $35 to check your bag” screen. It says it’s a one time special offer but I’ve done it a half dozen times now on American and twice on United. Bag just is supposed to be carry on sized. I don’t even have to take it through security when this option is available.
We’ve largely done this to ourselves. The cheapest price is king in air travel. Unless you’re traveling for work, everyone goes for the cheapest option, so airlines are incentivized to get the base price as low as possible. Like if the option was to pay $100 more and get 2 checked bags, a meal, and more legroom, I’m still not going to do it.
The price of air travel has come down astronomically over the past few decades.
ike if the option was to pay $100 more and get 2 checked bags, a meal, and more legroom, I’m still not going to do it.
It’s depending whether you need check bags. As soon as you need check bags, suddently, main airlines becomes competitive with cheap ones like Ryanair, especially considering the airport they desserve which tend to be better located (The difference between a Metro ticket for the main one, and a 20 € Shuttle bus to a remote one also impacts the total price
And massively increased again in the last five years…
Mainly due to the pilot shortage and collapse of the business market. If you want to start adding back items that were debundled from tickets, overall ticket prices are just going to increase.
Delta AMEX offers a “free” checked bag on domestic flights.
And methods have been worked out to load passengers smoothly and efficiently. Alternate sides, every other row, if I recall correctly, leaves plenty of space and time. But nobody uses this.
No the most recent conclusion is random works best if the participants are “normal”. Any strategy about this seat or that row first requires trained participants to maximize that effort.
It’s a practical, demonstrative example of scarcity. It causes people to act internally rational, even though there are far more efficient methods.
these methods don’t account for all the variables that reality has. People across all boarding groups will be late, there will be people that need assistance from flight attendants, there will be people who want to switch seats to be near their family, there will be people who can’t sit in the exit row, there will be people who need to use the rest room, there will be people who’ve never been on a plane before.
There is no great, full proof way to handle it because people are unpredictable
“The plane is here, everyone get on” (random order) is actually faster than the method they use now, so it wouldn’t take some complex system to increase speeds.
That’s essentially what Southwest Airlines does. No assigned seats, just a boarding group and number for “controlled” self-service boarding.
Too bad you end up in a Southwest plane after all that. I flew them once, in the extra room seat (I’m a tall bastard) and there has apparently been 600 lb life people using the seat before, it was like sitting on an old wicker chair that had blown out.
One of the worst flights I’ve had.
From the airline’s point of view, having the next person right there ready to get in their seat is preferable to having everyone come up one at a time. This is why they have boarding groups. You usually see between 3 and 5 boarding groups because it’s a reasonable number between 1 and N (N being the total number of passengers). I’m curious how ~10 boarding groups would fare, but presumably there’s a reason airlines don’t do that.
I was just mentioning this to my lady before boarding. I found that video absolutely fascinating.
Even worse, people have to pay to be in an earlier boarding group. I they use limited overhead bin space as a hostage.
I’m actually in that group 1 position right now, in a LatAm A320 premium economy seat. Besides the service upgrade and baggage allowance, it’s just economy with the center seat reserved. Oh, and free messaging WiFi, too, which somehow includes Lemmy Sync.
The sooner I get to my seat the sooner I’m out of the god damned airport and can begin whatever escapism I’ve chosen for the flight. The thing I truly hate is the airport and being in it.
Especially if that “escapism” is sleeping
Overhead space for carry-on bags.
Because airlines have hiked the cost of checked luggage to absurd levels so a large number of people have roller suitcase carryons. I have a small messenger bag I travel with that’s soft-sided and I want to get on early so I can make sure it’s over my head in case some asshole tries to cram their bag in over mine.
One airline now charges for carry on. Checking in a small bag is free!
Who is that? I want to give them all my fucking money.
I didn’t used too get in line. But I’ve had a number of times someone took to much carry on (how I don’t know) and took all of the overhead space, refused to fix it, and the airline didn’t give a fuck either.
This is why I do. I typically just take a small bag for under the seat and a small carry on suitcase. Some people have so much shit, usually after a long flight the last thing you want is to be the last person off the plane because your carry on is 8 rows behind you.
If you have a bag to put in the overhead compartment then you want to get on sooner since the space is limited. I personally only ever take a bag that can go under the seat. I wait until everyone has boarded regardless of my group.
This is the correct answer. If I’m on an overseas holiday I’m usually carrying an extra bag of medication.
If I wait I run the risk of no storage space near me and it getting stored away from me
Limited overhead space. If you wait, you increase the chance there won’t be room for your overhead bag.
The real answer. I sometimes have a laptop in my carry on. I’ll be fucked if I’m going to hand it over to the savages on the tarmac.
If you have it in a backpack you can put it under the seat in front of you unless you’re in a front seat or one next to an overwing emergency exit.
This is all officially allowed and I’ve used it plenty of times.
Bags on the floor take what little space there is for my feet.
True, it can be a tradeof, depending on the length of one’s legs.
Once I’m in the air my backpack goes from under the seat to under my knees. Then I can stick my feet under the seat for that extra few inches of stretch. It’s not a whole lot but it does help.
It’s illegal to put a lithium battery in your checked luggage anyway.
*over a percentage of weight or wh rating
That’s only for cabin luggage. In checked luggage, Lithium Ion batteries are completely banned. If a battery bursts into flames in the cabin, it can be handled with hopefully minimal damage. You do not want that to happen in the belly of the plane packed in closely between everyone else’s luggage with no way of getting it contained until the planes lands.
Well no because it depends on the airline.
I just checked an airline (Lufthansa) and they allow it for checked luggage up to 100Wh though do not recommend it.
Anything 100-160wh requires a permit from Lufthansa.Interesting, that seems kinda unsafe to me. The one I checked was Ryanair, they fully prohibit batteries in checked luggage
No, it doesn’t depend on the airline. In the US, the TSA banned all lithium batteries in checked baggage:
Okay, I am willing to argue:
German Luftfahr Bundesamt (Federal Airfare) allows up to 100Wh of Li-Ion in checked baggage: https://www.lba.de/DE/Luftfahrtunternehmen/Gefahrgut/Passagierinformation/Passagiergepaeck/Elektronische_Geraete.htmlBoth hand and checked baggage:
In jedem Fall (ob aufgegebenes oder Handgepäck) ist aber zu beachten, dass jede Batterie dabei die folgenden Grenzwerte nicht überschreiten darf:
Bei Lithium-Metall-Batterien, ein Lithiumgehalt von 2 Gramm.
Lithium-Ionen-Batterien eine Nennenergie von 100 WhAnything else you wanna argue is not true?
Also Lufthansa: Baggage battery restrictions.pdf
And Eurowings: Restrictions dangerous goods
Condor prohibits anything more than a smartphone: Condor restrictionsAnyway I think I made my point: It depends on the airline.
So go check with them if you travel!No that is saying all spare uninstalled batteries
Spare (uninstalled) lithium ion and lithium metal batteries, including power banks and cell phone battery charging cases, must be carried in carry-on baggage only.
Here is it talking about built in
https://www.faa.gov/hazmat/packsafe/portable-electronic-devices-with-batteries
When portable electronic devices powered by lithium batteries are in checked baggage, they must be completely powered off and protected to prevent unintentional activation or damage.
Sounds like it is ok as long as they are powered off.
A lot of airlines nowadays seem to charge extra for a carry on than they do a checked bag. So I tend to bring one checked bag and one small backpack that can fit under the seat, which isn’t classified as a carry on.
Yup yup, carry on and personal item. You can live for a week out of that. Plus no wait at the baggage claim, and no risk of the airline stealing or breaking your stuff.
For me it’s the last chance to stand for a while. If I’m going to be sitting in a cramped seat for 2+ hours then you bet I’m going to be standing before hand. So the if I’m standing then I might as well be in line.
came here today exactly this.
You can stand while the plane is flying?
Yes but that’s not ideal for a nervous flyer, or being in a window seat. It’s easier to just stand at the airport.
Unless you need/like to stand before takeoff, I don’t see the point. I don’t mind if people do, as long as they are polite.
Bag space woes? It’s real, but seriously see what you can do without. I fly for work at least once a month and I’m a pro one bagger for trips of 4 days or less; more if I’m doing summer weight clothes. It means I rewear things if they are clean and sometimes wash clothes in my hotel, but damn does it make travel easy.
Checked bag fees suck. Be the first to volunteer to gate check. I can only recall one flight in the last few months where an announcement wasn’t made. The bag is waiting at the destination gate so you don’t even have to handle bag claim. I do it every time I travel.
Agreed. Can we talk about getting off though? Everyone seems to have their own idea about how to do it and here is my proposal that I am very certain is the most efficient: plane lands at gate, but doors haven’t opened yet. The AISLE seats get up, get their bags, wait patiently in aisle till doors open. The WHOLE LINE of aisle standers files off (they are all ready to just leave), then the next inner seats get up, get their stuff, and file off, etc. Every time someone is “polite” and lets people get up infront of them, they hold up the entire line of aisle standers, and anyone else who could be getting up from their seat and grabbing their things. The entire plane has to wait each time someone says “yes I could just walk forward and leave the plane right now, but please go ahead and take your time getting out of your seat and grabbing your things before I go”
Two reasons:
I always take window seats, and don’t really want to hop over someone to get to my seat.
And it also means I don’t have to fight for overhead space for my carry-on.
This is the reason.
No, that is the solution. The reason is that airlines intentionally plan with too little overhead space to save money.
How does that save money? It’s not like they have to leave their bags behind if the overhead space is gone. It just gets checked instead.
I don’t know about saving money, but around here airlines have been creeping up checked bag fees for years. You used to get one free checked bag but when they started charging for all checked bags people started trying to fit thier entire vacation worth of stuff into carry-on. The bags I see people trying to fit into the overhead now are huge and just barely fit in the compartment on smaller planes. The airlines know what’s up though since they’ll charge for checked bags but then announce repeatedly before the flight that they’re looking for volunteers to check their carry-on to its final destination for free. I actually saw one airline enforce the carry-on sizing device as people were boarding and forced any oversize bags to be checked. A lot of unhappy people that day.
I’ve never been charged to check my bag at the gate.
I see only one reason, why i would want to be early at the seat. its bcs if i am not, my backpack might be placed above but multiple seats away by the crew, where it is then uneasy for me to have an eye on it whilst easy for theives to take and open them, especially on long flights there would be plenty of opportunity like when everyone is sleeping.
but for this case i use locks on the backpack anyway, so that anyone who wants to open it, either opens it where nothing of value is in it thus no lock, or at least has a much harder time than when trying the very same with other bags…
also on longer flights i usually did not have that problem, but that could also have been just luck
Thieves aren’t buying multiple hundred dollar tickets to bip your laptop from your bag man.
- i am sure you won’t pay for it if my laptop disappears this way (if yes, lets make a contract with a lifetime “fee” of 0$ i pay you whilst you pay for everything that got stolen from me in a plane)
- ppl with kleptomania do travel too
- how could you know? you are not talking about you and your colleagues or such?
- such statistics were made by those who benefit from planes looking more safe.
- “work and travel” vs “steal and travel”, which is more likely be done by a thiev?
- not all theives “need” to steal, some just do so because they can, others maybe because its family tradition.
- sometimes it could be more important that nobody could possibly put something into(!) your bag (and remove it later) to let you get it through customs for them, those arguably “would” buy such tickets to do so, as it’s probably part of their income, but i guess thats only a problem when flying in or out of countries with big illegal drug imports.
- <something i forgot>
I’ve literally never had anything stolen from an overhead bin, and I’ve never given the slightest of fucks about monitoring my bags unless I was traveling to like a 3rd world country, and even then, it’s overkill to worry. It’s a captive audience, and the dumbest place to steal. The airline has everyone’s name/info. It’s certainly possible, for someone to, but definitely not likely.
yeah, that’s why i am happy to avoid the us when travelling, mainly because of reports that electeonics are bricked regulary by them, but this discussion is more about theft. like “never allow hand luggage to be checked, better miss the flight instead”:
it’s not always about travellers that could lay hands on your stuff, maybe staff “needs” a living wage too ;-)
Yeah, but the op was talking about worrying about people on the plane stealing from his bag in the overhead bin, not the TSA stealing from it. But yeah, TSA is grimy AF, I always make sure to count my money before and after I put my wallet through the security line. I also wouldn’t trust valuables in a checked bag as well.
