exwannabe

Thanks fastair.

Yes, I am sure the alg is far from perfect. But so was the old process where they tried to guess.

For those who think they should wait for the bins to actually be filled up, that would be really bad. You could have dozens of rollers in the aisles as the bins fill, and then it will be a huge mess. All of those will spend time time looking for a spot.

And of course, what if somebody refuses to part with their carry on at that point? It is allowed, and they are already on board. Could be a Dao moment.

So I agree with them calling "bins filled" when they have reason to think the bins should be filling up. If it is not perfect, and there were some empty spots, tough bananas.

FlyngSvyr

I was on a flight last week on a E-175 and the GA kept pressing this point, but it was for a very good reason. Due to weather and a late crew our flight was just over an hour late leaving. He was very upfront that by the time they reached BG 4&5, the overhead space would run out and they would have to check bags anyways. If bags were gate checked in the 30 minutes we were waiting for the crew, it would "help our cause" to get the plane out & to our destination quicker. I was in BG 1 & had already checked my 2 bags at the ticket counter so had nothing to offer to the cause

Interestingly, I watched many in BG 4-5 with "full loads" not budge an inch, but many in BG 2-3 went ahead and gate checked to "help out". When they walked by my seat later during boarding, many only had 1 of their 2 bags...

username

This makes a lot of sense. It would be interesting if they had different teams working on different algorithms to see which one has the best prediction.

Thank you.

fastair

great minds...

I pace my boarding, not allowing the jetbridge to back up much, I check ALL oversized bags that are clearly significantly oversized (12+ inches in the 9 inch dimension,) not fearing what boarding group they are. Not fair to forcibly check compliant's bags when letting the 1st 30 people get a free pass to ignore the sizer. This too, paces out the boarding, where there is no need to stop the process at the end tagging every single bag.

By not letting the bridge back up, I can walk to the aircraft and count how many more spaces there are vs saying "there are 25 people in the aisle trying to find space, 25 more on the bridge, 30 of those 50 have bags that wont fit under the seat, and I cant get anywhere on the plane to see how many spots are left. making a line (in the aisle and jetbridge) longer doesn't speed the movement of people, it creates traffic, which slows free movement.

I used to load plan a bit at the turn of the millennium. We had a thing caller the "beeper" (BPR:Bag per passenger ratio.) It is roughly the same thing, but for preplanning checked bags and their weight for optimization. Up to (2) 50 lb bags were free for everyone back then, so many more were checked. It didn't matter how full an aircraft was, the same ratio would apply (these were lobby/curbside checked bags, not gate bags) but would vary by market/day of the week. Leisure routes on Sat, the BPR would go up maybe 1.8 checked bags/passenger at the high end, business routes on a commuter day, like Fri evening, the BPR would be low. This is just IMHO, an expanded version of that, except aircraft type and number of free seats have an impact on the outcome.

STS-134

If airlines just got rid of the darn baggage fees this would never be a problem. Why is it that every time I fly an airline within Asia, there's always plenty of overhead bin space even after everyone has boarded? Oh right, it's because not everyone tries to haul everything they own in a huge carryon in the cabin.

DJ_Iceman

I had the same thing on a flight today. "We need to gate check 23 bags and so far only two people have done so." The specific number given surprised, as I was more used to the "We've got a very full flight and passengers in boarding groups 4 and 5 may not have room for their carry-ons" announcement. Now I know why...

txflyer77

Heard a specific number today flying out of SFO.

I'm so glad I've downsized to a single personal-sized bag. Makes all this much less of a problem.

swag

That would help, but even 100% compliance won't solve the problem completely.

Most mainline narrow-body planes have 3 seats on each side, and there are 2 overhead bins in the space above every 3 rows. Wheels first, that's capacity for 6 rollerboards for every 9 passengers. On those flights with mostly business passengers (who usually prefer not to check bags), there will never be enough space...

LarryJ

Cheking bags would make it worse.

A carry-on bag stowed in the cabin is included in the average passenger weight. If the bag is checked, or gate-checked on an RJ, the bag suddenly has a weight of its own in addition to the passenger weight. So, checking more bags makes the airplane heavier (on paper).

Live4Upgrade

Charge a fine if passenger brings a bag on board and it (A) won't fit or (B) no room left. Make the fine 2x of the fee to check a bag.

warrenw

Eh - vast majority of flyers are non elites though, right? Not to mention they fly enough they kind of deserve to be able to bring an extra bag... I mean maybe not an extra rollaboard altogether, but still.

Ber2dca

I recently had a UA flight where a passenger had brought on a massive carry-on. It didn't fit, not because of lack of open space (this was in J) but because it was just so massive that it literally physically couldn't fit into a 757's overhead bins. This was discovered as they tried to stow it away and after failing to successfully do so in a number of attempts.

While this should probably have been noticed during boarding, it's certainly understandable why it wasn't. Boarding was already significantly delayed and the crowd was restless. Things had to move quickly.

They ended up checking the bag and the dude was OK with it and was a bit embarrassed by his mega carry-on at that point. But what if he pulls a Dao and says "I boarded the plane with this bag, I don't allow this bag to be checked" and doesn't back down. What do UA staff do? Are police an option still? Offer the guy money to check his bag? If they do call police and there's a fracas filmed, will the airline take another hit?

chavala

"A Dao moment". I like that.

LordHamster

I've seen the specific number of bags several times now, with the GA counting down from that number as people check in. I'm starting to suspect they are being prompted by the computer, or maybe have a chart per plane that gives them a "best guess" number to make boarding to faster.

lilpisher

I was on a ORD-SFO trip Monday AM where they had to start checking during BG2. On another return trip, it was: folks, we have 130 people in BG1/2, and then the number of bags they needed to check.