<p>Here’s another crowded plane problem: With charges for checked luggage, nearly everyone wants to use the overhead bins and it causes congestion as people are boarding and disembarking. As someone who checks my larger bags and puts my important possessions (phone, medicine, iPad, etc.) in a very small bag under the seat in front of me, I don’t like having to wait for a very long time to get off the plane while so many people who didn’t check their luggage block the aisles by walking up and down to locate their bags. Sometimes another passenger will wrestle a heavy suitcase out of a compartment right over my head. I’ve seen people duck to get out of the way of falling luggage.</p>
<p>In the past there was plenty of time to get off a plane and even go to the restroom before checked luggage started coming through baggage claim. However, the delay in getting off the plane caused by people who are trying not to check luggage is so bad that people with checked luggage often don’t get to their baggage claim area before the luggage starts coming off the carousel. The on-plane congestion not only delays people with checked luggage, it leaves more time for someone else to steal their bags before they can get to the carousel.</p>
<p>Suggestion: Airlines should allow people who do not have bags in the overhead bins to disembark first. They could get out very quickly ahead of everyone else and be on their way.</p>
<p>That’s a great idea, Marsian. That would encourage people to use checked baggage, and then also generate more money for the airlines! Question – when airlines ask for people with connecting flights to disembark first, is that what really happens? Don’t people lie about having connecting flights? I would expect that, since in the world of flying nowadays, it’s pure selfishness (hogging overhead bins, the seat reclining wars, etc.). </p>
<p>Marsian, if I have a connecting flight, I’m not going to sit on the plane and wait for everyone who has checked bags to get off the plane first. I’m as anxious to get off that plane as you are. I only check bags if I absolutely positively have to, which is almost never – and my strategy is to pick a seat as close to the front of the plane as possible. </p>
<p>The people I want to murder are the ones who put their tiny bag in the overhead, or carefully fold their jacket into the overhead. That’s what the space under the seat in front of you is for. (And then there was the obese woman I recently sat next to on a flight, who took up 1/4 of my entire seat. That was a miserable hour.)</p>
<p>That is a MAJOR flying pet peeve of mine, when a flight is late, people are making connections, and people for whom this is their final destination don’t just shut up and sit down and let them by. </p>
<p>Another thing? When you go through security, please don’t be the idiot who waits right at the end of the metal security thing for your bag to come through (so you can grab it as soon as it emerges from where security was scanning it). When you do that, and you’re putting on your shoes and what-not, you’ve now blocked the people behind you from reaching their bags. Move to the END of the belt area and let your bag go through to the end and grab it there. I will call people out on that one and ask them to move. They don’t get that it’s inefficient for everybody. </p>
<p>The other security thing I hate is when some men get up to the screening station and they start emptying their pockets one-by-one-by-one-by-one into the plastic bin. It’s amazing how much cr@p they hold in their pockets. There’s a special place in hell for the ones wearing cargo pants.</p>
<p>Get a manbag already and stop slowing down the line!</p>
<p>I for one always stand at the end of the conveyer to get my stuff as it comes out of the security screener. Pizzagrl, there’s a fair amount of theft that occurs in that space, particularly from other passengers leaning over women’s purses. Your issue is addressed by people who, like me, grab their stuff then leave the area to go to the little benches. (I usually don’t need that anymore though because I’m almost always TSA Pre. )</p>
<p>My per peeve is the overhead compartment. The airlines claim to be cracking down, but the enforcement is inconsistent. Then you have the passengers who put their bags in the compartments up front, then go to their seats further back. Hate that. Even when it doesn’t impact me directly, it always causes problems and delays as the FA tries to stow the bags of the passengers who. Is have no space over their seats. </p>
<p>I don’t know why the airlines don’t charge more for people who carry on than who check. From a plane-loading standpoint, they could improve their on-time record significantly if more people checked their bags. Of course, then they would have to hire more baggage handlers.</p>
<p>I do slightly recline my seat, usually in response to the person in front of me doing it. I fly a lot and have never had anyone tell me not to. It is a pain when I am working on my laptop and the person in front of me wants to go way back, but I figure that is their “right” to operate their seat within the range it can move.</p>
<p>I have a hard time with armrest hogs and people who don’t fit into their seats and annex part of mine. I know the seats are small and uncomfortable, but I feel that I should get the space I am paying for. I also resent paying for overweight bags when the weight of me and a heavy bag combined is less than many passengers. (I do recognize that the baggage handlers have to be careful with the heavy suitcases, but still.)</p>
<p>The Knee Defender should be banned, unless the airlines want to see other aftermarket solutions to the indignities of air travel.</p>
I think Hagar the Horrible’s motto, “I got mine,” unfortunately epitomizes our modern age, and leads to a lot of these conflicts.</p>
<p>A note about the overhead: if I’ve paid cash money to check my bags, I don’t feel too guilty about putting a small bag or even a coat in the overhead. The space under the seat is occupied by my feet.</p>
<p>You are probably right, Hunt. But I do think the pressures of business travel have gotten worse. Many companies (including mine) won’t pay for even the “economy plus” seats with more room. (You can pay for an upgrade yourself if you want.) If you are traveling to a meeting, there’s always last-minute stuff that needs doing, hence the laptops on planes. (Also, they try to minimize the number of hotel nights, meaning you’ll often see people like me on a 5:45 am flight trying to work before I get to wherever I am going.)</p>
<p>There are lots of things I will do for other passengers–take a middle seat, move so a family can be together, help people cram their bags into small spaces. But air travel is kind of like driving–you sometimes have to assert yourself and claim your space.</p>
<p>I put my coat in the overhead. I don’t like to put it on the floor. I pay to check my carryon sized bag not to haul it around. I am still using less space than most and prefer not to be lectured about how to use the overhead space.</p>
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<p>I do that. My kid takes her instrument on board. It’s not big or heavy but it takes the whole length of the overhead compartment. Not always easy to find a free overhead.</p>
<p>I really hate it when people use compartments not above their seats. Nothing worse than going to your seat and finding your overhead already full.</p>
<p>^^ What I’ve actually done is heave an exaggerated sigh (heh) then look for an overhead nearby with space in it and ask the person below it if it’s ok to put my bag there.</p>
<p>^Actually I don’t mind that. I already pay for it by checking all my bags big or small. I am guessing I subsidize other people’s luggage. It scares me when people haul up what looks like a heavy carryon over my head to store. What if they lose control?</p>
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<p>So do you go to an overhead only where there are passengers already seated?</p>
<p>So far it’s worked out that nearby compartments are above occupied seats. The times when I have empty seats beside me I also have an empty compartment.</p>
<p>Igloo, if there is a spot over any seat in my row, I use that. If there is no spot for my cay on, I ask the flight attendant for help. I figure they’re there to help avoid inter passenger issues.lus they want to load and unload passengers as quickly as we do. </p>
<p>Igloo, if you get on a plane and put a carry on that doesn’t meet airline rules for carry on (and if it takes up a whole compartment, it doesn’t) then I would ask the FA for assistance. It should be their challenge and yours, not mine. </p>
<p>Hunt, you don’t happen to work for that Irishman, the airline owner who proposed charging for use of the airplane’s lavatory, do you? Actually, I think you’re right. Paid storage compartments will be the next “innovation” in air travel.</p>