Forced bag check w a fee

have not seen this before. flight booked to capacity, normal check early free bag announcement. with added threat. if you don't check now, and your bag doesn't fit in the sizer, we will make you pay. and boy they sure did. irate customers galore. they collected 10 bag fees from my count so $250 for smi/j. but those pax were unhappy. basically, as they lined up to scan their bp, the agent was like nope - doesn't fit, go to the desk and check and pay $25. no option or alternative. flight closed gate on time still (but just barely, they did not close 10 mins early) and pax sceaming upset, and i'm sure they lost some kettle passengers for life. i have not seen this degree of unhappiness in awhile.

Hmmm, united.com makes no mention of the Friendly Skies this morning. I guess that is over.

I wonder if this policy will eventually be extended to elites, i.e., force the elite to pay if he waits until the overheads are too full.

Hopefully the kettles will dispute the charges.

Where did this occur?

Wait, was the agent eyeballing the bag or using the jig by the gate?

If they were using the jig to judge if the bag fits, HA! Screw 'em.

So they were forced to pay to check bags that should have been checked to begin with? What's the issue here?

Fascinating. I guess this is better than having the TSA size bags and reject them at the security screening area.

I see nothing in the Contract of Carriage that says that bags that are legal carry ons (I.e. fit the sizer) can be charged a compulsory checked bag fee. But I might have missed it; can you point us at it?

Sounds from OP that the bags that were forced-check didn't fit in the sizer. So agent did no wrong here. One can say it's "bad will" but the other viewpoint is that allowing those bags on reinforces the idea that they don't care about bag size. It's important for pax to know that if their bag is too big, it must be checked

About those kettles..

Kettles were given fair warning. And a chance to do it for free.

Kettles have no lifetime anger. Price matters.

Kettles do not seem to understand personal responsibility. They had a choice. They ignored it.

??

On one of my flights this past week, one of the GA said pretty much the same thing. She even gave the overall dimensions of 45 linear inches, don't know if anyone got caught as I boarded second.

You have never boarded a flight where there is a GA guarding the entrance to the plane (not the entrance to the jetway) with a wad of gate check tags, forcing pax to gate check without using a sizer?

I was going through IAH last year and this, for lack of a better description, thug/hood looking guy (dreadlocks, etc)... had to be told to take off his sunglasses when he showed his ID to the TSA, and also had a full size suitcase he was trying to roll through security. Needless to say he had his bag searched, but not rejected.

Sure I have but there's no evidence that's what happened here.

If the GA was making people pay only for bags that did not fit in the sizer - that's completely fine by me. I've been on way too many flights over the years where people bring oversize carry ons, and its gotta stop somewhere. In fact, I think (flame suit on) that elites should also be forced to pay the checked bag fee if they have a non-compliant bag that comes to the gate and needs to be checked there. I'm also for more enforcement of the existing carry on dimensions.

Where I do have sympathy for the folks who were charged, and where their anger should probably lie - is with the luggage manufacturers. Truth is, when these folks were buying the bag, they were most likely sold a 22" "carry-on compliant" bag that actually isn't, because almost all manufacturers don't count the wheels/handles in their specs, while the airlines do. This game by the manufacturers has to stop - in fact, with the airlines getting more strict with their own bag rules, I'm a little surprised there hasn't been a lawsuit against a luggage manufacturer yet (at least that I've heard of). While not a fan of regulation in general, I think it would not be a bad thing to regulate how luggage manufacturers can market bag dimensions and some sort of carry-on complaint label.